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What my father was doing in there was said to be very important—the important things that men did, too important for females to meddle with because they had smaller brains that were incapable of thinking large thoughts, according to Aunt Vidala,
There were swings in one of the parks, but because of our skirts, which might be blown up by the wind and then looked into, we were not to think of taking such a liberty as a swing. Only boys could taste that freedom; only they could swoop and soar; only they could be airborne. I have still never been on a swing. It remains one of my wishes.
how could Job have allowed God to fob off a batch of new children on him and expect him to pretend that the dead ones no longer mattered?
would make a man out of dough, and they would bake it in the oven with whatever else they were baking. I always made dough men, I never made dough women, because after they were baked I would eat them, and that made me feel I had a secret power over men. It was becoming clear to me that, despite the urges Aunt Vidala said I aroused in them, I had no power over them otherwise.
Aunt Vidala said that best friends led to whispering and plotting and keeping secrets, and plotting and secrets led to disobedience to God, and disobedience led to rebellion, and girls who were rebellious became women who were rebellious, and a rebellious woman was even worse than a rebellious man because rebellious men became traitors, but rebellious women became adulteresses.
hair is about life. It is the flame of the body’s candle, and as it dwindles the body shrinks and melts away.
The flame of my life is subsiding, more slowly than some of those around me might like, but faster than they may realize.
Right now I still have some choice in the matter. Not whether to die, but when and how. Isn’t that freedom of a sort? Oh, and who to take down with me. I have made my list.
I’m a bugaboo used by the Marthas to frighten small children—If you don’t behave yourself, Aunt Lydia will come and get you! I’m also a model of moral perfection to be emulated—What would Aunt Lydia want you to do?—and a judge and arbiter in the misty inquisition of the imagination—What would Aunt Lydia have to say about that?
Now I know what it feels like to be in a riot: it feels like drowning.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one most travelled by. It was littered with corpses, as such roads are. But as you will have noticed, my own corpse is not among them.
You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on
Every woman wanted a baby, said Aunt Estée. Every woman who wasn’t an Aunt or a Martha. Because if you weren’t an Aunt or a Martha, said Aunt Vidala, what earthly use were you if you didn’t have a baby?
Blood was polluting, especially when it came out of girls, but God once liked having it spilled on his altars. Though he had given that up—said Aunt Estée—in favour
The adult female body was one big booby trap as far as I could tell. If there was a hole, something was bound to be shoved into it and something else was bound to come out, and that went for any kind of hole:
Why cry, you should be happy, you got out. But after all that’s happened to me since that day, I understand why. You hold it in, whatever it is, until you can make it through the worst part. Then, once you’re safe, you can cry all the tears you couldn’t waste time crying before.
They said calm things like You need to be strong. They were trying to make things better. But it can put a lot of pressure on a person to be told they need to be strong. That’s another thing I’ve learned.
Giving up was the new normal, and I have to say it was catching.
One person alone is not a full person: we exist in relation to others. I was one person: I risked becoming no person.
Women have been told for so long that they can achieve equality in the professional and public spheres. They will not welcome the…” I sought for a word. “The segregation.” “It was always a cruelty to promise them equality,” he said, “since by their nature they can never achieve it. We have already begun the merciful task of lowering their expectations.”
Keep steady, I told myself. Don’t share too much about yourself, it will be used against you. Listen carefully. Save all clues. Don’t show fear.
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Having no friends, I must make do with enemies.
“Nobody is any authority on the fucks other people give,”
“Too much imagination. I believe that’s what happened, concerning the…those things.” “Yes, the thought-experiment penises can get out of control,” I said. “They take on a life of their own.”
Gratitude is valuable to me: I like to bank it for a rainy day. You never know when it may come in handy.
“Once you’re dead, you’re dead forever”
Innocent men denying their guilt sound exactly like guilty men, as I am sure you have noticed, my reader. Listeners are inclined to believe neither.
“No one wants to die,” said Becka. “But some people don’t want to live in any of the ways that are allowed.”
Being able to read and write did not provide the answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.
I feared I might lose my faith. If you’ve never had a faith, you will not understand what that means. You feel as if your best friend is dying; that everything that defined you is being burned away; that you’ll be left all alone. You feel exiled, as if you are lost in a dark wood. It was like the feeling I’d had when Tabitha died: the world was emptying itself of meaning. Everything was hollow. Everything was withering. I told Becka some of what was taking place within me. “I know,” she said. “That happened to me. Everyone at the top of Gilead has lied to us.”
She said you could believe in Gilead or you could believe in God, but not both. That was how she had managed her own crisis. I said that I wasn’t sure I would be able to choose. Secretly I feared that I would be unable to believe in either. Still, I wanted to believe; indeed I longed to; and, in the end, how much of belief comes from longing?
The truth can cause a lot of trouble for those who are not supposed to know it.
Such a cruel thing, memory. We can’t remember what it is that we’ve forgotten. That we have been made to forget. That we’ve had to forget, in order to pretend to live here in any normal way.
Loose lips sink ships, and sinking ships kill people.
No pain unless necessary, but if necessary, pain.
She who cannot control herself cannot control the path to duty. Do not fight the waves of anger, use the anger as your fuel. Inhale. Exhale. Sidestep. Circumvent. Deflect.
“Sorry,” I said. “But if you don’t mind me saying, supposing there is a God, he has totally effed up my life.” I thought she’d get angry then, but all she said was, “You are not unique in the universe. No one has an easy time in life. But maybe God has effed up—as you put it—your life for a reason.”
“Dear God,” I said, “may we accept the past with all its flaws, may we move forward into a better future in forgiveness and loving kindness. And may we each be thankful for our sister, and may we both see our mother again, and our two different fathers as well. And may we remember Aunt Lydia, and may she be forgiven for her sins and faults, as we hope we may be forgiven for ours. And may we always feel gratitude to our sister Becka, wherever she may be. Please bless all of them. Amen.”
The release of this information touched off the so-called Ba’al Purge that thinned the ranks of the elite class, weakened the regime, and instigated a military putsch as well as a popular revolt.
Like any human technology, there’s a plus side, a minus side, and a stupid side you didn’t anticipate. Pick out any technology, it’s true of them all.
I have a clipping from the 1950s about how to be a good wife, with all these things you have to do and have not to do, and so forth. And women read it and they say, “This is horrible.” And men read it and they say, “This sounds pretty good.” It contains gems like: “Never question your husband, he is the head of the household, even if he doesn’t come home all night. He knows what he’s doing. And you don’t have to know what he’s doing.”
