Atwood made Offred have limited ethics to make the narrative and story of Offred and her struggles in Gilead realistic and believable. The government has banned education and censored everything Offred is exposed to to limit and control her thoughts, knowledge, and mind. They also effectively used coercion and instilled fear in Offred to make her follow Gilead's strict anti-feminist rules. The strict censorship on everything heard or seen by Offred, combined with the ban on education, has populated her mind with what the government desires, which lowers Offred's ethics. The only thing we can read about the Handmaids in society and on the streets is the language of images. For example, when Offred went to the grocery store she mentioned “Next we go to AllFresh, which is marked by a large wooden pork chop hanging on two chains” (34). This shows that the education they receive and the knowledge of HandMaid is totally controlled by the government because the girls only know how to read pictures and the government only has pictures of simple things like street signs, shop names to limit and control what they read. Additionally, girls are brainwashed into thinking the way the government wants them to in the “Red Center.” An example of this can be found in a comment by Offred regarding the Beatitudes being read to them in the Red Center. He says: “They played it from a tape, so not even an aunt would be guilty of the sin of reading… Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the silent. I knew they made it up, I knew it was wrong, and they left things out too, but there was no way to check” (110-11). This indicates that the government censors everything the girls are exposed to in order... middle of paper... the note shows one of the many ways the government used to scare the citizens of Gilead into doing so. obey the laws. The government killed and hung people on the wall for the public to see. This scared everyone because they know that if they do something against the government, the next body hanging on the wall could be theirs. This fear led Offred to follow the rules and made her do whatever it took to safely survive Gilead. The handmaids of Gilead had only one task: to bear children with the commander to whom they were assigned. Handmaids who do not do so are sent to the colony or, if they rebel, are killed. Offred explains this fear of not meeting expectations by saying, “Every month I looked at the blood, with fear, which meant failure. Once again I have failed to meet the expectations of others, which have become my own” (Atwood, 91).