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The Handmaid's Tale Vol 3

574 replies

CruCru · 24/07/2017 21:18

Hi all

As the last thread has all but totally filled up, I've started this new one.

Bit shallow - but do you think the Wives are allowed cosmetics? I got the impression that make up is banned but they do all look very polished.

OP posts:
ElenaGreco123 · 02/08/2017 21:16

Sorry if it has been discussed, but do we think June will be executed after giving birth. Or will Nick turn her state witness against Commander Waterford?

I will readthe book now and have ordered the Power by Naomi Alderman as well.

millifiori · 02/08/2017 22:00

June won't be executed. She's a valuable commodity. They might mate her with a couple more Gilead commanders and then sell her to a South American country.

BrightonBelleCat · 02/08/2017 22:27

What goes on in the colonies? Or is there no such place i.e. They kill you.

I also don't understand what serena joys original thought process was. How did she think it would end up? Be interesting to know more about it.

ElenaGreco123 · 02/08/2017 22:50

But they wanted Janine dead and she was valuable.

NameChange30 · 02/08/2017 23:02

Janine's "crime" was very public. She almost killed a baby which must be the worst crime in their world.

June's "crime" was to have sex with Nick but that was in private and difficult to prove (unless they do DNA testing on the baby, but would they do that?) Still punishable but not as bad as harming a baby surely?

LotisBlue · 03/08/2017 00:07

Just watched the last episode Shock

Re. The women's names - offred, offglen etc, is it really so different to women being called Mrs john Smith and so on?

ElenaGreco123 · 03/08/2017 07:05

Offred was not arrested for sleeping with Nick. She was punished for publicly defying the order to stone Janine.

Mrs John Smith may have some rights. Ofjohn is a slave.

bubblesquirrel · 03/08/2017 07:19

Also they'd lost control of Janine, what was to stop her doing it again? She's not useful as a handmaid unless she can be controlled.

NameChange30 · 03/08/2017 08:18

But they all defied the order to stone Janine - they can't all be punished too severely or the regime would have no handmaids left.

orlantina · 03/08/2017 08:30

But they all defied the order to stone Janine - they can't all be punished too severely or the regime would have no handmaids left

This is it. Resistance is much more effective when it's mass resistance. It's what worked in India with Gandhi. Non violent but everyone taking part.

woodhill · 03/08/2017 08:49

Yes they'd have to round them all up.

pixieg1rl · 03/08/2017 08:54

Thanks to whoever it was that posted the stuff about series 2. I'm especially excited about the MayDay stuff; the book hints at who sympathises with the cause, but I'd like to see that expanded. Because of course it will be prone to power struggles and I can imagine that it's probably patriarchal in structure with a lot of the 'agents' being women like Marthas and Handmaids, and we know from history (I'm thinking revolutionary France) that while these causes welcome women's contribution they are less keen to share power and influence with them as the cause matures. I think it could easily have parallels with Serena's experience of Gilead.

Thethingswedoforlove · 03/08/2017 08:55

But Offred started the mass resistance. So it cd be argued she deserved to be punished as a lesson/ to make an example of to the others for the future.

morningtoncrescent62 · 03/08/2017 08:55

What goes on in the colonies? Or is there no such place i.e. They kill you.

That's an interesting idea - that the colonies aren't real, just a threat. It's plausible, I think. I'm getting very muddled now between what's in the book, in the series, and blanks I've filled in myself over the years (!) but I'm sure I remember a scene in the Red Centre where they're shown footage from the colonies, and there's a brief glimpse of June's mother, which suggests it wasn't simply a made-up propaganda film. They're cleaning up contaminated waste and (if I'm remembering correctly) life expectancy is about three years of getting more and more sick. So if it's made up, it's an effective line to peddle, and I can see why women would want to avoid it at pretty well all costs.

But they all defied the order to stone Janine - they can't all be punished too severely or the regime would have no handmaids left.

Absolutely, which is why they need to make an example of the ringleaders in the hope that it will subdue the others. I wonder what's happened to Ofglen - last seen being dragged away, but I'm sure there's some other public punishment/degradation awaiting her, they wouldn't let her off with just that beating.

NameChange30 · 03/08/2017 08:58

Yes I can imagine they want to make an example of June, but she is pregnant so I don't think they would do anything to endanger her pregnancy. (Possibly being optimistic here!)

orlantina · 03/08/2017 09:00

What's more important - maintaining control of women through fear and violence or a new baby?

I suspect the control is far more important to Gilead. Family is 'a front'.

NameChange30 · 03/08/2017 09:06

Good point.

LotisBlue · 03/08/2017 09:22

It's possible they took offred/June away to make an example of her, because she was the first one to refuse to throw a stone at janine. Alternatively (hopefully) this has been arranged by nick and the people who took her away were resistance officers in disguise. In the book, I don't recall June being pregnant at the end and I think it was much less clear whether nick was really on her side. Actually, there was much less open rebellion in the book and people were more paranoid that others were spying on them, iirc. I think I will reread the book, I haven't read it since I was a teenager. I don't remember as much of the stuff about her daughter in the book but that is probably because I didn't have children of my own then. Now, watching the series, the bits about Hannah are the hardest for me to watch.

elena I didn't mean to say that current real life wives are in the same situation as the handmaids, just that the naming conventions are actually quite similar, and stem from the same principle, that women were the property of their husbands.

Am I right in thinking that in the TV show version, the letters June read from the other handmaids was the first time it was confirmed that gilead is much bigger than the community shown on the programme? Until then, I wasn't sure if the 15 or so handmaids in the programme were the only ones, and gilead may have been a tiny city state. But the volume of letters makes it clear that gilead must be quite big and there must many other similar communities, each with its own handmaids.

QueenieGoldstein · 03/08/2017 09:40

Ofglen was the first to refuse wasn't she? So if anyone would be made an example of it will be her (and I'm sure this will happen). Nick will know about this so wants June safe and away so sets up the escape.

thatone · 03/08/2017 10:13

I have been re-reading the book and the symposium notes from the end of the book (after Gilead had fallen) suggest that Nick may have had June placed in a safe house somewhere, where she recorded her story. After that they speculate that she may have ended up in Canada or England.

AnneLovesGilbert · 03/08/2017 10:19

I reread the epilogue after I finished the episode the other night and was struck again by how glib the academics were about her story. Which makes sense, it was so many years later, nothing could be verified, it was all over. But it does jar.

Abra1d · 03/08/2017 10:58

I know. We feel so emotionally connected to Offred that it almost hurts to hear her story discussed so coolly.

ElenaGreco123 · 03/08/2017 11:13

I love this thread and so sad THT has ended.

Last night I watched Elisabeth Moss in Top of the Lake. Everyday sexism annoyed me so much that I have nearly thrown my slippers at the telly.

ElenaGreco123 · 03/08/2017 11:16

In the first or second episode June said that only 2 states stayed part of the original USA.
The wiki also assumes that there are 48 states in Gilead the-handmaids-tale.wikia.com/wiki/Republic_of_Gilead

noblegiraffe · 03/08/2017 11:20

Ofglen was only the first to protest so that she could be knocked out and June could walk on her own at the front of the handmaids at the end because it looked better.

Have I got confused or wasn't it Ofglen who said she liked being a handmaid because it was better than being a street hooker? That she didn't want Offred to ruin it for her?