Handmaids are a special cast of fertile women whom Gilead has deemed too immoral to be married—usually because they were not virgins when they came to Gilead. Handmaids are assigned to powerful men, usually Commanders, to have sex with them and bear the men’s children when their legal wives are found to be infertile. Because of their position, Handmaids are reviled by Gilead’s society, seen as immoral and shameful women. Contact between Handmaids and any other class is expected to be as minimal as possible.
Handmaids Quotes in The Testaments
The The Testaments quotes below are all either spoken by Handmaids or refer to Handmaids. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 6
Quotes
I’ve become swollen with power, true, but also nebulous with it—formless, shape-shifting. I am everywhere and nowhere: even in the minds of the Commanders I cast an unsettling shadow. How can I regain myself? How to shrink back to my normal size, the size of an ordinary woman?
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Chapter 15
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Her name was Ofkyle, since my father’s name was Commander Kyle. “Her name would have been something else earlier,” said Shunammite. “Some other man’s. They get passed around until they have a baby. They’re all sluts anyway, they don’t need real names.”
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Chapter 18
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The truth was that they’d cut Crystal open to get the baby out, and they’d killed her by doing that. It wasn’t something she chose. She hadn’t volunteered to die with noble womanly honor or be a shining example, but nobody mentioned that.
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Chapter 46
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The Angel’s real crime was not [smuggling] the lemons, however: he’d been accused of taking bribes from Mayday and aiding several Handmaids in their successful flight across our various borders. But the Commanders did not want this fact publicized: it would give people ideas. The official line is that there were no corrupt Angels and certainly no fleeing Handmaids; for why would one renounce God’s kingdom to plunge into the flaming pit?
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Handmaids Term Timeline in The Testaments
The timeline below shows where the term Handmaids appears in The Testaments. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Ardua Hall Holograph
...have a statue made of them while they are still alive. In the sculpture, a Handmaid and a Pearl Girl stand at her sides, and a taser hangs from her belt....
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Chapter 3
The dollhouse also contains a Handmaid doll and a swing set, though girls would never dare swing on the swings lest...
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Chapter 13: Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A
...has a somewhat infamous reputation since her former husband, Commander Saunders, was murdered by their Handmaid, stabbed in the throat with a kitchen skewer. The Handmaid reportedly fled, but was caught,...
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Chapter 14
...God’s most important messages to women from the Bible: the story of the Concubine—like a Handmaid—cut into 12 pieces. In the story, a man’s concubine runs away to her father’s home,...
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Chapter 15
A few months later, Commander Kyle gets a Handmaid, whose name becomes Ofkyle, to bear him a child. Shunammite insists, “They’re all sluts anyway,...
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...secret: Tabitha was not Agnes’s real mother. According to Shunammite, Agnes’s real mother was a Handmaid, a “slut” who’d tried to take her across the border through the woods into Canada,...
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Chapter 16
...is angry that Agnes’s friend told her but confirms that she was born by a Handmaid. However, Zilla remarks that if one’s mother is the person who loves them most, then...
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From that moment, Agnes is fascinated by Ofkyle, her father’s Handmaid. Although Agnes is not allowed to speak or interact with Ofkyle, Agnes finds herself secretly...
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Chapter 18
...parties so that other women can come to dote on her and see her pregnant Handmaid. Watching through a crack in the door, Agnes sees that the women love Ofkyle’s pregnant...
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Chapter 19
Agnes’s classmates revile her once again, since their Handmaid’s death was a sign of ill-fortune. Agnes reflects that their school has two religions: one...
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Chapter 28
At preparatory school, Aunt Lise teaches the girls such skills as handling one’s Handmaid, interior decorating, and flower arranging. Becka’s wedding has been arranged for November, but Becka wishes...
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Chapter 29: The Ardua Hall Holograph
...sackcloth robe. She is aiming a rifle at a line of former friends and colleagues, Handmaids, wives, and daughters she has judged. Some of them are mutilated, missing eyes or feet...
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Chapter 46: The Ardua Hall Holograph
...are an Angel charged with black market dealing (though truly suspected of helping Mayday smuggle Handmaids out of Gilead) and Dr. Grove, who’s been charged with the attempted rape of Aunt...
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...for the Angel, then for Dr. Grove. For each, when Elizabeth gives the signal, 70 Handmaids beat each man to death and literally tear their bodies to pieces. All of the...
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Chapter 51
...the death of Commander Saunders, Paula’s former husband. The Commander was not murdered by his Handmaid, but by Paula, who was having an affair with Commander Kyle even while Tabitha was...
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...desk, describing the crimes of people at every level of society except for Aunts and Handmaids.
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Chapter 53: Transcript of Witness Testimony 369B
...begins crying and screaming, and the Aunts drag her away to turn her into a Handmaid instead. The next day, Jade attends the Particicution in the stadium. Seeing the Handmaids frenzied...
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Epilogue: The Thirteenth Symposium
...goes on to explain that he believes Agnes and Nicole’s mother to be Offred, the Handmaid who left behind her account of her escape from Gilead decades before, though it’s only...
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