ffred and the other Handmaids in their district of Gilead are heading to a Prayvaganza (a group prayer, of sorts). She likes to think of herself and the others at a distance. As something graceful, like a flotilla of swans or dutch milkmaids. That would be soothing to the eyes (or Eyes). This is much like the idea of her thinking of herself as “outside of time” but now she’s outside of herself, looking at the group of which she is a part. Also, the Handmaids walking along “like a flotilla of swans…without variation” shows the conformity expected of them (212). They are to be indistinguishable from each other. No individuality. No self-volition. No self-actualization. It’s quite dehumanizing. She wants to see dandelion flowers, the kind children use for making wishes by blowing on, dispersing all the seeds into the air. She also remembers playing with flowers when she was a small child. So they’re being infantilized as they’re paraded to the event. At the checkpoint, she imagines that they are all schoolgirls who, in some fairytale, have been away for a...