Atwood identifies the girls by image, rather than name or speech;
“Felt skirted as I knew them from pictures, later in mini-skirts, then pants…..”
This shows that Atwood wanted, to a certain extent, to keep the girls anonymous, thus, I imagine increasing the mysteriousness of the passage.
The second paragraph becomes a little more personal;
“There was old sex in the room, and loneliness, and expectation….”
It recalls on youthful experiences;
“I remember that yearning for something….”
The third paragraph, again like the first, raises a lot of questions. It moves on to talk about the present day living conditions for the people there now.
“We had flannelette sheets….”
It reveals more about what is going on, but gives nothing away and still carries on raising unanswered questions.
“……as we tried to sleep, in the army cots that had been set up in rows.”
Why were they sleeping in army cots?
“…With spaces between so we could not talk.”
This shows again, that there is some sort of control over the people here.
“Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods.”
The Aunts obviously have authority because they carry cattle prods. In this quote there is a large contrast when talking about the aunts. The term “Aunts” suggests a relationship with love and affection, however this is contrasted with the fact that they carry a weapon, to, what we believe, harm the girls there.
The fourth paragraph becomes deeper. It expresses what I interpret to be the girl’s desperation.
“If only they would look. If only we could talk to them. Something could be exchanged, we thought, some deal made, some trade-off, we still had our bodies.”
This suggests that the girls are so desperate they are wiling to sell their bodies to escape from this place, which also suggests that it is not a very nice place to be and that horrible things could be happening to them.
More names are also mentioned, for example the guards and the Angels. We also learn a bit about the hierarchy of the place: who’s in charge of who.
“No guns though, even they could not be trusted with guns. Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the Angels.”
This quote reveals to the readership two new names. It also, in one sentence, allows the readership to know how important these people are by whether or not they are allowed to use the guns. “They” (which is in bold in the quote) refers to the Aunts previously mentioned. From this we are able to establish that they probably do not have much authority. The guards however, can be trusted, and so they become second, but because the guards are specially picked out by the Angels, it must mean that the Angels have the most authority out of everybody mentioned so far. It also raises questions as to why the Aunts cannot be trusted with the guns.
This paragraph also adds to the conclusion that the girls are most probably prisoners;
“….Except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field…”
Here we can see that there is regulation, two walks a day, girls have to walk two by two. It also makes the girls lives compare to that of an animal, taken for walks e.t.c.
“…..enclosed by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire”
This means that the girls cannot escape; they are prisoners of this place.
The fifth paragraph is the most personal of them all. It finishes describing and explaining and talks about the girls. I feel that it is quite touching, although the girls are obviously in an uncompromising, and from what I can gather quite a horrible situation, they still have each other. I like the way Atwood uses this paragraph to subtly describe their friendship, it is almost reassuring that you know these girls have somebody there to comfort and support them.
“We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semi-darkness we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren’t looking and touch each others hands across space.”
Another important factor about this paragraph, which emphasises , even more, the fact that it is personal is that we actually come to discover some of the girl’s names;
“Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June.
As a first chapter, I found it really gripping. It makes you want to read on to find out why these girls are in the situation they are in. You want to have all those questions that had been brought up answered. The first few paragraphs create a very eerie and mysterious mood, which only makes the unknown element of this chapter more effective. I think the way Atwood was able to describe a scene and a situation to us so clearly, without letting us know exactly what the scene or the situation was is so clever and makes the reading so much more exciting. As an opening into the book, I think Atwood has done a really good job. It wasn’t too long and it really gave an edge to the book.
