The first major theme becomes evident in the first chapter. When the first characters make their appearance, it is highlighted that the only form of communication they are able to have is through their ability to "read lips, with our [their] heads resting on the beds, turned to the side and looking at the other's mouth." "(Atwood, 4); meaning that they are deprived of something so basic as communicating with each other. We later find out that one of the women from the first chapter is forced to call herself Offred. At one point she had another name, but a no one was allowed to use it because all real names were forbidden, you were "of" someone; meaning they had ownership over you. No handmaid can even read basic signs, they can read one word and that is faith They [the government] had decided that even “shop names were too much of a temptation” (Atwood, 27) for handmaids. To be a handmaid was to become nothing more than a child-bearer. They had even destroyed Offred to the point of to be completely devastated when his time of the month came because each cycle meant another month in which he had failed, failed "once again to meet the expectations of others, which have become [his] own" (Atwood