Ross Schonberg
Ms. Gubanich
English
May 15, 2016
Unpacking pg 275 Quote
In the book The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, we have learned more about the society that Offred has become apart of. As the story is moving forward, we see more ceremonies and rituals take place, which gives us more insight into how Offred feels about this world around her. While Offred is watching the ceremony she says, to herself, “A collective murmur goes up from us. The crimes of others are a secret language among us. Through them we show ourselves what we might be capable of, after all”(275 Atwood).
First, at the time Offred was saying this, she was at a woman’s “Salvaging” ceremony, which is basically a large-scale execution. The ceremony takes place at an old college, on top of a stage “but this stage is not the same after all, because of the three wooden posts that stand on it, with loops of rope”(273 Atwood). As Offred is in the crowd of Handmaids and Wives, Aunt Lydia is the one who is leading the ceremony. The ceremony begins and “on the stage, to the left, are those who are to be salvaged: two Handmaids, one wife”(273 Atwood) to which Offred says that it is not common for a wife to be salvaged.
The best way unpack the main quote is to break it up sentence by sentence. The first sentence in the quote is “A collective murmur goes up from us”(275 Atwood). This part of the quote doesn’t have a whole lot of deeper meaning to it other than that they have basically been “trained” to know when to be quiet and do as they are told and to watch the ceremony. Then, the second sentence in this quote is “The crimes of others are a secret language among us”(275 Atwood). Offred says that the crimes are a secret language, because everyone already knows what they are being killed for without anyone actually saying it, which was that the two handmaids could be in trouble for trying to kill their commander’s wife, and that the Wife was being hanged for killing her Handmaid, but Aunt Lydia refuses to share what they are truly being killed for since “we found that such a public account, especially when televised, is invariably followed by rash, if I may call it that, an outbreak I should say, of exactly similar crimes.”(275 Atwood). Although Offred will never know the exactly what happened, she (probably) at least understands why they happened. For the Handmaids, they probably were sick and tired of being treated poorly by the wives who looked down on them as sluts. As with the wife, whose motive probably stemmed from jealousy, not being able to have sex with the commander, thus having to have the Handmaid sleep with him, making the Wife feel useless. Lastly, for the final sentence in the quote: “through them we show ourselves what we might be capable of, after all”(275 Atwood). With this part of the quote Offred is saying that she too could commit a crime similar to these, but she doesn’t, mainly because Gilead has enforced these rules so strongly and have instilled fear into the people. This entire quote also foreshadows how the book ends. The quote has some “open-endedness” to it, like how Offred really doesn’t know what caused them to be hung. The end of the book is just like this quote, because at the end of the book Offred is taken away and we don’t ever really know why. So with both this quote and the ending of the book they leave it open for the reader to guess what happened, while also giving them some options, like how there were a few options as to why the women were hanged, and at the end of the book Offred is with Nick as she is being taken away, and he says to her “It’s all right. It’s Mayday. Go with them”(293 Atwood). This doesn’t necessarily mean that she is safe, it could be a trap to get her and take her away to be tortured or killed, but the reader will never have an actual answer, for both the quote and the ending.
In conclusion, this is a very powerful quote that says a lot about the world Offred lives in and how there isn’t always black and white in her society, much of what happens is covered in the grey area. This also shows that Offred does understand what Gilead is like and how she won’t always get answers. So, the quote certainly speaks volumes and tells a lot more than just about a simple hanging.
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