The Handmaid's Tale:Chap 11 quote

In chap. 11 there is a quote. It reads "To the right is the store where we order dresses. Some people call them habits, a good name for them. Habits are hard to break." In the adventures of Tom Sawyer there is a parallel idea when he states "The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it." You can see both Margaret Atwood and Mark Twain had similar ideas on the subject of customs. The structure of the dystopia present in The Handmaid's Tale tries to defend habits by saying "habits are hard to break." The given in to a general idea shows the lessening of hope by the handmaid's. If one person could just break away and shop somewhere else, that would show there individualism making them stronger. Being one is rather than the many is a powerful thing because no one can tell you that you are not different. That's what this dystopia has stripped the handmaid's of.