ing and organised resistance. These roles of individuals in Gilead are then perhaps the most significant tools to repress its citizens. Individuals are stripped of their names and symbolically, their individuality, which are then replaced with generic names for their functions, such as "Wives", "Handmaids", "Marthas", "Commanders", "Econowives", "Aunts" and "Eyes."
             These names have been clearly devised by once advertising agents to influence and control those in the system. The name "Handmaid" has biblical origins, and has connotations of a servile position. Each Handmaid is referred to by a patronymic name, meaning the combination of the possessive pronoun "of" and the name of their Commander. This explicitly recognises their lack of worth as an individual, their ownership by the male figure and the power imbalances that exist because of the patriarchal structure of the society. The patronymic form of names such as "Offred" can be paralleled to the use of the word "Mrs" in today's society. Offered guards her name to remember her own identity and the possibility of her life returning to normalcy in the future, saying, "I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I'll come back to dig up, one day. I think of this name as buried the name floats there behind my eyes, not quite within reach, shining in the dark." The meanings and connotations of names are very important within the structure of language, as they are the means of defining any entity.
             Similarly the naming of the "Wives" reflects the perceived worthlessness of women without their husband. The "Aunts" are the controllers of Handmaids, and are the personal agents of their oppression. In the Historical Notes it is revealed that the names of the Aunts were designed to be "familiar and reassuring to th...