James version of Lit Logs #2

Track your own intellectual and emotional experience through a close reading of a particular section. You are encouraged to tackle sections that you have found confusing, uncomfortable, or intriguing. You can write this in first person, citing specific examples from this selection as well as other parts of the novel that connect these ideas. Your selected text can be as short as one sentence or paragraph, and should not be from one of the sections we’ve used as an all-class close reading.

Chapter 33 page 217: “I just want to go home, Janine said. She began to cry. Jesus God, Moria said. Thats enough. She’ll be here in one minute, I promise you. So put your goddamn clothes on and shut up. Janine kept whimping but she also stood up and started to dress. She does that agains and i’m not here, Moria said to me, you just have to slap her like that. You cant let her go slipping over the edge. That stuff is catching. She must have already been planning,then, how she was going to get out.”

While reading this whole part of chapter 33, I started to get disturbed towards the end of it. I think I picked this part of the passage becuase it made me feel the most uncomfortable. This really goes into deep of the fear the women in this world must have for the men. Also it reveals a new way of thinking and intereperating the book. How the women have to treat eachother to keep going. To try to keep each other safe. This is just one of many times that you can see this cleary in this part of the book. The part where the author says, “She’ll be here in one minute, I promise you. So put your goddamn clothes on and shut up,” gives a chilling but well advised directivie. Its strict but with purpose. Theres a clear reason why Moria said this. Not to be mean but to help out. Unfortunately, moria lets janine get hit anyway. In this world however the women dont have much say. I also want to focus on how much abuse and tramua you would have to go throughin order to be okay with all the oppresion to your own gender. Towards the end of this, Moria sees it as you didnt do what you should have done now you need to face your consequences. A twisted vision on how women are treated. This makes me also think that maybe a situation or situations like this have happened similar to maria, and that is why she is more okay with it. Moria’s comment, “She does that again, and I’m not here, you just have to slap her like that,” showcases the brutal measures taken to stifle emotions in this dystopian world. Physical violence is employed to suppress any outward signs of sadness, further emphasizing the society’s cruelty and the inescapable sorrow that engulfs its inhabitants.

Even going back a little bit in the paragraph before that made me feel uncomfortable, a feeling that this book has made me feel many times throughout my reading. Page 216 reads, “They wont send you to the infirmary, so dont even think about it. Moria said, They wont mess around with trying to cure you.s They wont even bother to ship you to the colnies.” Moria’s statement, “They won’t send you to the infirmary, so don’t even think about it,” immediately introduces an air of hopelessness. In the world of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the government’s primary concern is maintaining control and enforcing strict gender roles. The welfare of the individual, especially of a Handmaid, is of little consequence. This complete disregard for the physical and emotional well-being of the Handmaids is a source of profound sadness. It reflects a society where suffering is normalized, and the value of human life has been diminished to the point where any attempts at “curing” or helping the afflicted are futile. The amount of human degrading in this part was crazy to me when I first read as well. She says wont even bother shipping you to the colonies like she isnt enough. Moria acts like she is so damage that she isnt even good enough to a place where the dehumane women every single day. A place where the treat women like they are not humans and usual are sent there to die.