The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

This quote was added by weesin
I sit at the little table, eating creamed corn with a fork. I have a fork and a spoon, but never a knife. When there's meat they cut it up for me ahead of time, as if I'm lacking manual skills or teeth. I have both, however. That's why I'm not allowed a knife.

Train on this quote


Rate this quote:
3.5 out of 5 based on 58 ratings.

Edit Text

Edit author and title

(Changes are manually reviewed)

or just leave a comment:


bvw 4 years, 7 months ago
Chinese custom is NOT to have knifes at the table either. The cook is the master of the knife. He (or she) cuts up all the food so that the diner does not waste time chopping and slicing. In a way in the West, we eat half-cooked food, because we need to do the chopping, slicing, fileting which an expert chef should do.

The Handmaid's Tale is silly. It's misanthropic.

Knife note 2: Handmaid's Tale real-life historical precendent (albeit false in so many ways) was colonial Massachussetts. On June 25, 1633, governor John Winthrop, a founder of that Bay Colony, took out a fork, then known as a “split spoon,” at the dinner table, the utensil was dubbed “evil” by the clergy. They said that the only thing worthy of touching “God’s food” was fingers. So this fictional character, of the misanthropic Ms. Atwood's mind, would better complain of the fork given her.

Test your skills, take the Typing Test.

Score (WPM) distribution for this quote. More.

Best scores for this typing test

Name WPM Accuracy
blacksoldier 159.69 96.3%
kurrai 156.00 97.4%
user871724 152.85 100%
jiggalee 151.60 96.7%
xmaddockmark 150.72 100%
treemeister 147.29 98.5%
highhonedjazzyaudio 144.65 93.9%
user37933 144.00 97.4%
zhengfeilong 142.80 98.9%
typin_ 139.87 93.9%

Recently for

Name WPM Accuracy
wen 45.23 97.7%
lbc27 83.57 98.5%
sururururu 41.74 90.6%
smartboynaresh 78.82 92.2%
o0fishy0o 56.01 89.3%
trishadgk 92.51 90.3%
mpizano 42.48 94.3%
user830398 88.19 97.7%