The Handmaid's Tale

Offred describes the room in which she stays in the Commander’s house and which she refuses to call “my” (18) room. It is simple and sparsely furnished. The window does not open fully, “the glass in it is shatterproof,” and “they’ve removed anything you could tie a rope to” (17). She observes that “[i]t isn’t running away they’re afraid of […] It’s those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge” (17-18).

Offred puts on the shapeless, body-covering outfit that she has to wear and remarks that “[e]verything except the wings around my face is red: the colour of blood, which defines us” (18). The “wings” are white, constrictive bonnets that “keep us from seeing, but also from being seen” (19).

On her way out to the shops, she speaks to Rita, one of the “Marthas,” conscripted domestic staff in the Commander’s house. She is unfriendly because she “disapproves of” the red dress “and what it stands for” and once remarked to another Martha that “she wouldn’t debase herself” (20) as Offred does.

Walking through the garden, which is “the domain of the Commander’s Wife” (22), Offred recalls meeting the wife “face to face for the first time five weeks ago, when I arrived at this posting” (23). Dressed in blue, like all Wives, with eyes “the flat hostile blue of a midsummer sky in bright sunlight” (15), she is standoffish, telling Offred that she wants “to see as little of [her] as possible” and warning her that “if I get trouble, I’ll give trouble back” (25). Offred was “disappointed” because she had hoped “to turn her into an older sister, a motherly figure, someone who would understand and protect me” (26).

The Commander’s Wife warns Offred that the Commander is “[m]y husband […] Till death do us part. It’s final” (26), and Offred thinks that “[s]he probably longed to slap my face,” which she is entitled to do because “there’s Scriptural precedent” (26). Offred recognizes the woman from a children’s gospel television show from before the war and realizes that her name is Serena Joy.

As she leaves the garden, Offred sees Nick, the Commander’s driver, who “lives here, in the household, over the garage” and who must be “[l]ow status: he hasn’t been issued a woman, not even one” (27). Nick is “too casual, he’s not servile enough” (27), and despite protocol and the risk of punishment, he winks at her. Offred wonders if “it was a test, to see what I would do” and considers that Nick may be “an Eye” (28), one of the secretive spies and enforcers.

Offred meets Ofglen, another Handmaid and her companion for shopping. They exchange the prescribed greetings, “Blessed be the fruit” and “May the Lord open” (29) followed by orthodox pleasantries. In the two weeks since she has been Offred’s partner, Ofglen has “never said anything that was not strictly orthodox” (29) but neither has Offred, as she does not know if Ofglen is “a real believer” (29) who might report her.

Offred admits that, as she passes through a check point, “I move my hips a little” to be seen by the guards “who aren’t yet permitted to touch women” (32). She is “not ashamed” and “enjoy[s] the power, power of a dog bone, passive but there” and thinks that the men will “suffer, later, at night” because they “have no outlets now except themselves, and that’s a sacrilege” (32).

Offred and Ofglen see a group of Japanese tourists, and Offred is shocked by their “lipstick, red, outlining the damp cavities of their mouths” and by the way “they seem undressed,” noting that “it has taken so little time to change our minds, about things like this” (38). When the tourists ask if they are happy, Offred says, “Yes, we are very happy” and thinks, “What else can I say?” (39).

On the way home, Offred and Ofglen pass “the Wall” (41), where the bodies of dissidents hang by the neck. They “wear white coats, like those worn by doctors and scientists” and have placards around their necks, each with “a drawing of a human foetus [sic]” (42), showing that they were executed for performing abortions before the war. Offred is relieved because “none of these men is Luke” (43). She feels “a tremor in the woman beside me” (43) and wonders if Ofglen is crying.