Handmaids tale journal #2

"I wipe my sleeve across my face. Once I wouldn't have done that, for fear of smearing, but now nothing comes off. Whatever expression is there, unseen by me, is real. 

You'll have to forgive me. I'm a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I've left or been forced to leave behind me, and it all seems just as quaint, from here, and I am just as obsessive about it. [...] Weep. Weeping is what it is, not crying. I sit in this chair and ooze like a sponge," (227). 

In this passage the character of Offred is talking about her life in this new, cruel world she lives in now. It is apparent that she is a Dystopian Protagonist from this passage for a few reasons. For one she describes how she feels trapped and is struggling to escape not only in this passage but throughout the book. When she describes that she is being forced to leave behind habits from her past life she is expressing that she is under strict rule and that she is being forced to live the way she lives now. She also contemplates trying to escape this terrible place she lives in(in other passages), she is even more inspired to run away by her friend Moira who was able to escape. Another example of her being a Dystopian Protagonist is the way she describes how something is terribly wrong with the society in which she lives in. She expresses that she weeps in this passage and in other passages because of the terrible conditions of society. She also explains in other passages, her deep desire to run away and escape this torturous town because of how terrible her life is there. There are several moral lines that are crossed in her life, through lack of rights women have in the society she lives in. She also questions the existing social and political systems in this passage and through out the book. She explains that she misses her lifestyle from the past because of how terrible she has it now. This is because of how she describes her political system and how terrible it is. The political system gives women close to no rights in this society, which makes Offred's life a living nightmare. She questions this system and often wonders how this system came about.  Very ofter, she describes how questionable and unfair this system is and how much she desperately wants it to change.