"I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born" (Atwood 66).
I chose this quote because it just puts the whole society and her role in perspective. The first sentence, "I wait.", isn't that what she is always doing? Offred is constantly in a state of waiting for instructions and on a constant time schedule. A lot of that schedule, however, is waiting. She must wait until dinner is finished before the Ceremony commences or she has to wait until she is served before having anything to eat; getting up and making lunch just isn't acceptable. I find this to be another fault in this seemingly perfect society. Given all this time to wait and sit until told to stop, only allows these women to think and question anything and everything that the society is. Although we as the reader are only seeing in the mind of Offred, it shows that anyone in her position has plenty of opportunities to come up with ways to revolt or rebel, the May Day code.
Continuing on, "I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech." implies an analogy to how those in society function. No one in the whole novel appears to be thrilled with the role they have so when its necessary to carryout the actions of their roles they put on this facade. The use of a speech caught my eye. A speech, most likely a persuasive one, has part and pieces that all lead to proving this central idea. Offred's uniform, her fly-on-on-the-wall attitude, and her over conforming to the rules of Gilead are the supporting ideas to prove the central point that she is a bible-abiding citizen and handmaid. The person speaking while reciting the speech usually has to either truly believe in the message they are passing along, or be a great actor. In this case I think the whole society full of people are acting. No one truly feels that the choices made in this society are 100% right.
"What I present is a made thing, not something born." I liked the way Atwood ended this chapter/quote/passage with this line. If you are born into something, it is a natural thing; such as being a natural born citizen of the United States. She was not born into this and it was thrust upon her. Offred is putting on this act and in the end it is all made up, whether she is a follower of the bible or not, she doesn't quite agree with the laws here so it is therefore unnatural to her. In the whole of the novel, it goes back to the acting versus believing issue. I don't feel that anyone is satisfied with the way this society is, but they don't know how to change it so they fake it so they can make it to the next day without harm.

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Very informative, thank you.
ReplyDeleteMy English assignment do be thriving now, thank you.
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