Offred sitting in her room beside a partly open window in The Handmaid’s Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale Chapter 2 Analysis: Offred’s Room, Identity and Control

par · Lecture: 20 minutes
  1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood: Gilead, power and resistance
  2. The Handmaid’s Tale: analysis of the opening chapter
  3. The Handmaid’s Tale Chapter 2 Analysis: Offred’s Room, Identity and Control
  4. The Handmaid’s Tale: Chapter 5 analysis
  5. The Handmaid’s Tale: Chapter 25 analysis
  6. The Handmaid’s Tale: Chapter 41 analysis

In chapter 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred’s room looks plain, domestic and almost harmless. Yet every object reveals Gilead’s machinery of control: the missing chandelier, the partly opening window, the absent glass, the prescribed red clothing and the distorted mirror all turn private space into a system of surveillance, discipline and identity theft.

Chapter 2 is one of the most important descriptive passages in Margaret Atwood’s novel. Nothing spectacular happens in terms of plot, which is precisely the point. Offred sits in a room, observes furniture, notices colours, dresses, leaves the room and walks through the Commander’s house. However, through this slow movement, Atwood teaches the reader how to read Gilead.

The chapter works like a coded inventory. A chair is never only a chair. A window is never only a window. A mirror is never only a mirror. Offred’s world has been designed to reduce action, thought, memory and selfhood. Therefore, the passage reveals the violence of Gilead not through direct explanation, but through objects, spaces and tiny acts of interpretation.

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Scottish flag and the Union Jack

Scotland: the Road to Independence

par · Lecture: 3 minutes
  1. The Act of Union of 1707
  2. Scottish Home Rule
  3. The rise of the Scottish National Party (SNP)
  4. The Scottish Parliament
  5. Scotland: the State, the Nation, Home Rule, and Devolution
  6. Scotland: the Road to Independence

Scottish Independence Referendum, 2014

In August 2009 the SNP announced a Referendum Bill would be included in its package of bills to be debated before Parliament in 2009–10, to hold a referendum on the issues of Scottish independence in November 2010.

The bill did not pass due to the SNP’s status as a minority administration, and due to the initial opposition to the Bill from all other major parties in the Scottish Parliament.

Following the Scottish Parliament general election, in 2011 the SNP had a majority in parliament and again brought forward an Independence Referendum Bill.

The Scottish Government also suggested that full fiscal autonomy for Scotland (known as « devo-max ») could be an alternative option in the vote.

The negotiation of the Edinburgh Agreement (2012) resulted in the UK government legislating to provide the Scottish Parliament with the power to hold the referendum.

The « devo-max » option was not included, however, as the Edinburgh Agreement stipulated that the referendum had to be a clear binary choice between independence or the existing devolution arrangements.

The Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Act 2013 was passed by the Scottish Parliament and campaigning commenced. Two days before the referendum was held, with polls very close, the leaders of the three main UK political parties made « The Vow », a public pledge to devolve « extensive new powers » to the Scottish Parliament if independence was rejected. They also agreed to a devolution timetable proposed by Gordon Brown.

After heavy campaigning by both sides, voting took place on 18 September 2014. Independence was rejected by a margin of 45% in favour to 55% against.

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Installation de Nextcloud: votre propre service de cloud chez vous photo 1

Nextcloud: solutions pour les erreurs occ pour PHP, le mode maintenance et la base de données

par · Lecture: 22 minutes

Dans Nextcloud, la page Paramètres > Administration > Vue d’ensemble vous permet d’avoir un bon aperçu des tâches de maintenance à effectuer sur votre installation Nextcloud.

This version of Nextcloud is not compatible with > PHP 7.4

C’est une erreur – et non un avertissement – qui bloque toutes les commandes suivantes dans le terminal. Elle apparaît lorsqu’une version de PHP plus récente est installée sur votre serveur.

Chez moi, par exemple, j’ai PHP 7.4 pour les sites en production et pour Nextcloud mais aussi PHP 8 pour les plateformes de développement.

Voici le message d’erreur:

This version of Nextcloud is not compatible with > PHP 7.4.

You are currently running 8.4.0

Ce message apparaît parce que Nextcloud lance un rapide php -v pour déterminer la version de PHP installée. Cela ne reconnaît par contre que la version la plus récente installée.

Voici ce que donne la commande :

PHP 8.4.10 (cli) (built: Jul  3 2025 12:42:27) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Built by Debian
Zend Engine v4.4.10, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.4.10, Copyright (c), by Zend TechnologiesLangage du code : CSS (css)

La solution consiste à modifier manuellement la version retournée par php -v, à l’aide de la commande update-alternatives :

update-alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php7.4Langage du code : JavaScript (javascript)

Si on relance php -v, voici le résultat:

PHP 7.4.13 (cli) (built: Nov 28 2020 06:24:59) ( NTS )
 Copyright (c) The PHP Group
 Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
     with Zend OPcache v7.4.13, Copyright (c), by Zend TechnologiesLangage du code : CSS (css)

Avec cela, vous êtes parés pour les commandes occ de Nextcloud.

Nextcloud reste bloqué en mode maintenance

Cela peut arriver lors d’une mise à jour, pour diverses raisons.

Solution 1: avec la commande occ 

cd /home/www/nextcloud 
sudo -u www-data php ./occ maintenance:mode --off

Solution 2: éditer le fichier config.php

1. Editez le fichier config.php:

nano /home/www/nextcloud/config/config.php

2. trouvez:

'maintenance' => true,Langage du code : PHP (php)

3. remplacez par:

'maintenance' => false,Langage du code : PHP (php)

Enregistrez le fichier, l’assistant de mise à jour est alors capable de reprendre là où il s’était arrêté, automatiquement.

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