“I know where I am, and who, and what day it is. These are tests and I am sane. Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough when the time comes.”
As I mentioned in my previous post, I felt as if the society, unknowingly, helps her keep her sanity by placing a cushion with the word “FAITH” in all capital letters on it in her room. But Offred has her own tools to help her keep her sanity. One of the tools she uses most often is making distinctions about valid objects. “The red of the smile is the same as the red of the tulips in Serena Joys garden.” She demonstrates this on page 43 when she is observing the dead bodies hanging in white. She takes her time to pick apart details and make connections, but she knows herself there is no connection. This paragraph seems quite pointless to us, but this is how she goes through her daily life without completely giving herself over to this new society.
We see her again making distinctions between two different things on page 120. When she receives her egg she then makes a distinction between the egg and the moon. At a time where most people would just sit and eat their meal, she talks about how Good must look like an egg. And how the life of an egg is on the inside and how there must be life inside the moon. She then goes to talk about how in reduced circumstances there is a desire to live, which then attaches itself to strange objects. She goes on about how she would like to own a pet.
The mind is a very powerful thing. I think that we underestimate the ability it has to help keep our sanity. At the same time, our mind can also cause us to go insane. But Offred uses her mind to its full potential, in hope that by doing these tests and making distinctions between objects, when the time comes she will not have lost herself. I think that Offred, through all of this, realizes that her mind is her best friend in this isolated society.
No comments:
Post a Comment