#9- Handmaid's Tale

"'Mayday used to be a distress signal, a long time ago, in one of those wars we studied in high school. I kept getting them mixed up, but you could tell them apart by the airplanes if you paid attention. It was Luke who told me about mayday, though. Mayday, mayday, for pilots whose planes had been hit, and ships - was it ships too?  - at sea. Maybe it was S O S for ships. I wish I could look it up. And it was something from Beethoven, for the beginning of the victory, in one of those wars.
    Do you know what it came from? said Luke. Mayday?
    No, I said. It's a strange word to use for that, isn't it?...
    It's French, he said. From m'aidez.
    Help me" (44).

Atwood makes it clear that Offred remembers a lot of things but is having trouble putting all the pieces together. Offred admits that she "keeps getting [the wars] mixed up" and then later cannot remember if ships use S O S or mayday (ships use S O S). Offred also remembers that Beethoven had something to do with it but cannot fully remember how. Beethoven's connection to her memory is that the opening notes of his Fifth Symphony match the rhythm for the morse code meaning "V for Victory," a phrase used during World War II. Offred is from a time when the society was set up very differently and she still remembers pieces of it but the new society is overtaking these old memories. However, she is trying to piece things together and her plea for help at the end of the passage shows that she needs help to escape. The phrase "mayday" is used between the people of the society to hint that they are non-believers and to search out others of their kind. Atwood uses this term because it is their silent plea for help.

Works Cited:
"Mayday (distress signal)." Wikipedia. 25 Aug. 2010. 28 Aug. 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_%28distress_signal%29>.

Gutmann, Peter. "Ludwig Van Beethoven, Fifth Symphony." Classical Notes. 2001. 28 Aug. 2010 <http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics/fifth.html>.

"SOS." Wikipedia. 14 Aug. 2010. 28 Aug. 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOS>.