Response to Question #2

It is so crazy how there are real life situations that relate to what happens in the handmaid’s tale. This whole book describes the constant degrading of women. This can also force some of the women to rebel and murder (Moira) and to commit suicide. In chapter 29, page 187, the Commander says a Latin quote to Offred and told her that one of his old handmaids committed suicide after Serena found out about the Commanders and the handmaids secret nighttime liaisons.
Today, in Turkey (http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd[157]=x-157-537784), there is a concern about the current rise of young women suicides. Investigators from the UN, feminists groups and government officials are claiming that the women are killing themselves because of their forced lifestyles and if one would get caught doing something wrong, they were told that if they committed suicide, it would clear them of their wrong, and give the family “honor.” That stuff is just sickening!

In Chapter 37, Offred sees Moira at Jezebels, the club that the Commander sneaks her off to show her off. Moira tells her story, saying that she stayed with Quakers who were against the Gilead life (Chapter 38, 246). She said that they put her on the Underground femaleroad, an underground network that helps women trying to escape from Gilead reach safety. This underground femaleroad is related the Underground Railroad for slaves during the pre-Civil War days in the United States. Harriet Tubman, a former slave during slavery in the U.S. was one of the main people who helped slaves get from their plantation masters to the North, sometimes beyond Canada (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/j1.html).