Waste not want not—a puritanic aphorism credited to John Platt, nineteenth-century author of Economy, a compendium of platitudes.
ladies in reduced circumstances—a Victorian euphemism for poor women, who frequently had to live in boarding houses when they could find no suitable employment. Many of them ultimately resorted to prostitution, turning their rented chambers into brothels.
Late Victorian—an architecture that reflects the staid, family-centered mindset of Queen Victoria’s reign, which extended from 1837-1901. A heavy style, the Victorian touch runs to red brick, imposing, fortress-like facades, and an absence of beauty for its own sake.
fanlight—a half-circle of colored glass meant to add filtered overhead sunlight as a further adornment of the foyer. The colors, red and blue, suggest patriotic bunting as well as the free-floating hostility between the Commander’s Wife in blue and the intrusive Handmaid in red.
pier glass—a bulging, round mirror that produces a distorted image. Symbolically, it represents the Commander’s importance to Gilead’s spying operation and the prying eyes that deprive Offred of privacy. In its fish-eye reflection, Offred sees herself as a “sister, dipped in blood.”
Martha—In Luke 10:38-42, Martha, a Bethany housekeeper, works so hard at welcoming Jesus to her home that she fails to take advantage of his teachings.
scriptural precedent—biblical examples taken from context and used as justification for Gilead’s laws, or strictures. One precedent allows Wives to hit Handmaids.
Whirlwind—a high-powered car that suggests the biblical injunction from Hosea 8:7, a mournful complaint warning wayward Israelites: “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be its yield, the strangers shall swallow it UP.”
Compuchek—a parody of computerized scanning devices that read credit cards and bar-coded pricing and inventory symbols.
Commanders of the Faithful—a euphemism for the privileged, authoritarian hierarchy of Gilead.
Salvagings—a euphemism for executions. Such manipulations of language conceal the predatory nature of Gilead and its vicious hierarchy.
Prayvaganzas—a public display of sanctimony, which occurs in Chapter 33.
Birthmobile—a vehicle that transports Handmaids to a birthing so that they may encourage their fellow Handmaid during labor and profit from the experience by conceiving and producing children for Gilead.
Gilead—in Old Testaments times, a productive Israelite upland region cast of the Jordan River and northeast of the Dead Sea. Gilead was known for ample flocks of sheep and goats, orchards and vineyards, and plentiful spices.
Econowives—a jargon term for working-class women who lack maid service and thus must “do everything.”
Lilies of the Field—a clothing store that takes its name from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:28.
Milk and Honey—a food shop named for a biblical allusion to abundance, which is repeated in Exodus 3:8, Exodus 33:3, and Jeremiah 11:5.
Libertheos—a political force that captured Central America and cut off supplies of oranges to Gilead. The name elides the Latin for free with the Greek for god.
Red Center—an acronym of the official name of Gilead’s indoctrination center, the Rachel and Leah Re-Education Center, where potential breeders dress in red habits.
All Flesh—Gilead’s meat center, taking its name from a warning in Isaiah 40:6 that, unlike God’s word, human life is fragile and transitory.
women in long somber dresses—the pictures on the walls of the museum depict the area’s Puritan ancestry.
memento mori—Latin for “remember that you must die,” an inscription used by the pious on tombstones and monuments.
