The Handmaid's Tale Contents
- Interpretation and the opening epigraphs
- Section 1: Night - Chapter one
- Section 2: Shopping - Chapter two
- Section 2: Shopping - Chapter three
- Section 2: Shopping - Chapter four
- Section 2: Shopping - Chapter five
- Section 2: Shopping - Chapter six
- Section 3: Night - Chapter seven
- Section 4: Waiting room - Chapter eight
- Section 4: Waiting room - Chapter nine
- Section 4: Waiting room - Chapter ten
- Section 4: Waiting room - Chapter eleven
- Section 4: Waiting room - Chapter twelve
- Section 5: Nap - Chapter thirteen
- Section 6: Household - Chapter fourteen
- Section 6: Household - Chapter fifteen
- Section 6: Household - Chapter sixteen
- Section 6: Household - Chapter seventeen
- Section 7: Night - Chapter eighteen
- Section 8: Birth Day - Chapter nineteen
- Section 8: Birth Day - Chapter twenty
- Section 8: Birth Day - Chapter twenty-one
- Section 8: Birth Day - Chapter twenty-two
- Section 8: Birth Day - Chapter twenty-three
- Section 9: Night - Chapter twenty-four
- Section 10: Soul scrolls - Chapter twenty-five
- Section 10: Soul scrolls - Chapter twenty-six
- Section 10: Soul scrolls - Chapter twenty-seven
- Section 10: Soul scrolls - Chapter twenty-eight
- Section 10: Soul scrolls - Chapter twenty-nine
- Section 11: Night - Chapter thirty
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-one
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-two
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-three
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-four
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-five
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-six
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-seven
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-eight
- Section 12: Jezebel's - Chapter thirty-nine
- Section 13: Night - Chapter forty
- Section 14: Salvaging - Chapter forty-one
- Section 14: Salvaging - Chapter forty-two
- Section 14: Salvaging - Chapter forty-three
- Section 14: Salvaging - Chapter forty-four
- Section 14: Salvaging - Chapter forty-five
- Section 15: Night - Chapter forty-six
- Historical notes
- Human relationships in The Handmaid's Tale
- Mothers and children in The Handmaid's Tale
- Individualism and identity in The Handmaid's Tale
- Doubling in The Handmaid's Tale
- Gender significance and feminism in The Handmaid's Tale
- Power in The Handmaid's Tale
- Survival in The Handmaid's Tale
- Hypocrisy in The Handmaid's Tale
- Myth and fairy tale in The Handmaid's Tale
- Structure and methods of narration
Section 9: Night - Chapter twenty-four
Synopsis of chapter twenty-four
Offred goes back to her room, where she thinks about what has happened. She is not sure what use she can make of the Commander's having asked her to share illicit activities. She thinks about how the abnormal context makes people behave differently, and recalls seeing a film about the mistress of a prominent Nazi, interviewed years later, who could not accept that he was a monster. The ludicrousness of what has happened in the Commander's study suddenly hits her, and she has to stifle her laughter by lying on the floor with her head in the wardrobe.
Commentary on chapter twenty-four
perspective ... Context is all - By placing these ‘events' at a considerable historical distance in the section ‘Historical Notes', Atwood allows us a wider perspective, and asks us to consider how perspectives may change and how ‘context is all' when we are assessing what is ‘normal'.
thirty-three … brown hair … five feet seven - Although these are absolutely minimal descriptive features, they are all we know about Offred. They do not, however, allow us to picture her clearly. (Compare e.g. Dickens' first-person novel Great Expectations, where we have intimate knowledge of Pip's feelings but never any idea about his appearance.)
I can ask for something - Offred is aware that there has been a tiny shift of power in her favour, and she needs to consider what use, if any, she should try to make of it.
mistress of a man who had supervised one of the camps - Atwood is probably referring to Ruth Kalder, the mistress of Amon Goeth, Commandant of the Plaszow Concentration Camp. She remained loyal to him until she died, and always had a photograph of him in her room. In an interview in 1983, she described Goeth as charming and said that she never regretted being his mistress. However, Kalder committed suicide the day after the interview.
To invent a humanity - At the end of the novel, in Historical Notes, Pieixoto says that society in Gilead was ‘subject to factors from which we ourselves are happily more free. Our job is not to censure but to understand.' In this chapter's reference to Nazi atrocities, Atwood asks us to consider how far, if at all, we should accept this attitude.
how could she have kept on living? - Offred is well aware of the human capacity for self-deception.
laughter - Laughter is a very powerful force, like the ‘boiling.. lava' to which Offred compares it; but it is a rare, indeed unknown, capacity in Gilead. Offred's laughter, though, and her ability to see the ludicrousness of the situation with the Commander, are qualities which make her a survivor. (See Characterisation > Offred.)
the sound of my own heart, ... opening - The fact that the chapter, and the section, ends on the word ‘opening' perhaps suggests that there may be ways in which Offred's restricted life could start to expand.
Investigating chapter twenty-four
- Amon Goeth features in the story of Plaszow camp, near Krakow, re-told in the Booker Prize-winning novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally (published in 1982, and made into the film Schindler's List).
- Investigate the book or film to find out more.
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