The Handmaid's Tale

1. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

In the Handmaid’s Tale, this is meant to be an unintelligible latin phrase later translated by the commander, meaning “don’t let the bastards grind you down”. June/Offred finds this carved into the floor of her closet by the preceding handmaid of the household. The commander invites Offred into his office at night to make her life more bearable. Offred questions the commander on this phrase and about what happened to the previous handmaid. He discloses that handmaid committed suicide by hanging herself after Serena Joy, the wife, finds out her nighttime meetings with the commander. The commander does not want this to happen again with the current handmaid, and continues the nighttime meetings with June

During this time period, Ballet in the Western world was the only style viewed as a high art form, meaning it was formal with full orchestration, traditional costumes, and rarely straying from the plot. Other than Eastern European ballet companies, very few companies were advancing into new genres or straying from classical ballet. Graham was one of the artistic pioneers to shape modern dance. She enrolled at the Denishawn school of dance in her early 20s, this was very late compared to other professional dancers. Even though she was seen as short and not very attractive, she was a quick learner and Graham became a principal dancer of the troupe for many of the dances, an example being the gypsy moorish dance named serenata morisca (1916). Graham expanded the boundaries of contemporary dance by infusing political, social injustice, sexual, and psychological themes into her dances. She was also an essential advocate for styles of American cultures such as Afro-American and Native-American. She was willing to make ‘the beautiful into something striking and even ugly’ in order to connect to our emotions and the modern world. She represented those who did not have a voice in society, this was alarming due to the oppression of many peoples in America at the time. She said, “movement does not lie” and this perfectly describes her work of timeless creations, affecting both present and