The Handmaid's Tale

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The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood
Chapter 24
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Summary

• Offred goes back to bed, trying to get some
  perspective.
• Offred realizes she now has the power to ask
  the Commander for some things.
• She remembers Aunt Lydia suggesting, but never
  saying outright, that men are sex machines and
  the Handmaids should learn to steer them

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Themes Analysis
Gender Roles
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Summary

• Offred remembers a documentary about World War II
  that she saw as a child.
• Offred particularly remembers the mistress of a
  Nazi concentration-camp supervisor, who said she
  didnt know about the mass extermination taking
  place just next to her house.
• Offred imagines in detail how sweet and normal
  the Nazis behaviors might have seemed.

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Themes Analysis
Gender Roles
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Summary

• Offred starts hysterically laughing.
• She thinks about Nolite te bastardes
  carborandorum and listens to her own heartbeat.

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Analysis Themes
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Key Quote
How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone
at all. What an available temptation.
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Narrative Technique

• First person (central)
• The narrator is our eyes and ears
• We have to trust her, although that trust is
  continually undermined by certain comments
• "This isn't a story I'm telling," before
  turning around in an about-face and saying, "It's
  also a story I'm telling, in my head, as I go
  along"

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Character

• In this chapter Offred is thoughtful and
  reflective.
• When she starts to laugh hysterically, she uses
  her mental clarity to retain her sanity and help
  her to cope with her extremely restricted and
  tormented.
• She is also calmed by the message left from the
  past Handmaid. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.