the handmaid's tale

One of the most chilling aspects of Gilead is the lack of human touch and affection. Offred has come from a time and a place where love and affection are not only allowed but preferred, and now she is in a place where a person is given a new name, id number and a new purpose. Their purpose being only to reproduce and to keep the society going. Offfred says in chapter 18 that “it’s lack of love we die from”. Sometimes it is possible for someone to long for touch so bad that it kills them, for example the little premature babies in hospitals. The hospital will sometimes hire “sitters” to sit there and hold the babies all day long, just so they can thrive from that human touch. I can completely understand this because I was born almost 2 months premature. I had to say in the hospit...