Notes

Love and desire is complicated for Offred, as she continually thinks back to Luke during
her meetings with the Commander and Nick, respectively. It is also complicated because it is
prohibited, she is not to have romances or sexual relationships with anyone except the
Commander once a month, and yet we see her rebel these notions, if only faintly in the form
of teasing guards or playing Scrabble, which in the novel is presented as a sinful and almost
sexual act. Offred possesses sexual desire, but this desire is controlled and often repressed.
Her relationship with the Commander is another necessity as she has no other choice, and her
performance in this relationship is directly linked with her gender performance. Similarly,
Offred acts around Nick, and they find themselves citing old movie script, only further
emphasizing the constructedness of love and romance.

She argues that Offred wants them to stay as separate individuals, but that they
still merge and become difficult to distinguish from each other. She notes similarities between
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Luke and the Commander and says that the text provides “two male characters who mirror
one another; structurally, these two are twins. Offred does not draw attention to the parallels
between the two men, and might protest against such connections (”None of these facts has
any connection with the other” [140]) but the text insists upon them” (160) . This blurring
between her beloved husband and her Commander is disquieting, Miner says, as it casts doubt
upon the narrator’s story of Luke’s love and upon love stories in general.

However, it is Offred’s affair with Nick that most critics argue is the ‘subversive force’ that
frees Offred. In contrast to Luke and the Commander, who are both oppressive men who have
“the word”, Nick functions as “the fairy-tale prince, setting the princess free with a kiss”
(161), who saves her and seems to bring life to Offred. There are several instances of these
types of ‘roles’ being played between Offred and Nick that suggest that their relationship is a
performance meant to provide both of them comfort. At once instance Offred imagines a
stock scene from typical romances: “I have no rose to toss [from the window], [Nick] has no
lute. But it’s the same kind of hunger” (201). The rehearsal of old movie scripts and scene setups
contribute in invalidating the way some critics read the romance plot. Additionally,
Offred uses the language of Harlequin romance to recount her experiences with Nick.
Offred’s account comes right out of mass-market bodice rippers (…) Operating within
this traditional grammar (men are princes or made of darkness; women are princesses
or damsels in distress), Offred can individuate neither herself nor Nick; both fall into
roles assigned to them by fairy tales and romances (163-4).
With this, Offred “accepts these archaic plot lines as model for her own” (166). By using this
well-known language, these scripts and pre-existing plots, Atwood also highlights the
performativity of gender and the influence these old stories and romances have on how we
think it should be. Offred draws from what she knows and ends up with old clichés and
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stereotypes that reinforce the gender binary. Other ‘red flags’ in relation to Nick is the
similarities Offred notices between the carpeting on the stairs to Nick’s room and the
carpeting at Jezebel’s, a place that very much encourages the gender hierarchy and the binary
gender/sexuality roles, and the way Offred completely loses interest in Ofglen, Mayday (the
resistance), and the possibility of escape after getting involved with Nick. If love is the
subversive force of the novel, if love equals freedom for the female character, then these facts
about Luke, Nick, and the Commander suggest a dark fate for women in romantic
relationships.

Gilead constructs women as seen objects instead of seeing subjects. The distinction between
seeing and being seen is important in the novel as there is a large focus on the question of
visibility, and a lot of the performance that goes into Offred’s every-day life is centered
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around the fact that “the Eyes” are constantly thought to be watching and listening in. The
Eyes is what Gilead calls their secret police, the name evoking associations to the ‘all-seeing
eye of God’, but “whereas God means to induce trust and peace, Gilead’s eye spreads distrust
and fear” (Twohig 15). This omnipresent power leaves its literal mark on the handmaids by
the having national seal of Gilead tattooed on their ankles, like prisoners or branded cattle. “I
cannot avoid seeing, now, the small tattoo on my ankle. Four digits and an eye, a passport in
reverse. It’s supposed to guarantee that I will never be able to fade, finally, into another
landscape. I am too important, too scarce, for that. I am a national resource” (Atwood 75).
With this reminder branded onto her, Offred’s fear of being seen, watched, and listened in on,
is what drives her gender performance

Offred’s trip to Jezebel’s, a brothel for Gilead’s elite, as the Commander’s “evening rental”
(245) brings another dimension into the seeing/being seen dichotomy where Offred has to
wear yet another costume, both clothing and make-up, that caters to the male gaze,
transforming her from an ‘invisible’ sexual object (signaled by her clothing) to a ‘visible’
sexual object (also signaled by her clothing). “I’ve never worn anything remotely like this, so
glittering and theatrical, and that’s what it must be, an old theatre costume, or something from
a vanished nightclub act; the closest I ever came were bathing suits (…)” (242). At Jezebel’s,
Offred meets her old best friend Moira, who escaped the Center but who now works at the
brothel and is dressed up in what is supposed to be an animal costume in the form of an illfitting
strapless top, net stockings, high heels, and a tail and ears. She notes how Moira
“always hated high heels” (251). Deborah Hooker states that the costumed prostitutes
emphasize the female role as that of a “masquerade” which denies her the chance to
experience desire in her own right instead of the man’s (Hooker 287). The women at Jezebel’s
are meant to be seen and desired by men, and their costumes, mimicking old dance- and
Halloween costumes, reflect that just as much as Gilead’s modest clothing reflects how they
view the handmaids as innately sexual beings that should cover up as to not be ‘tempting’.

he biblical story of the barren Rachel and her handmaiden Bilhah serves as the justification
of Gilead’s treatment of women, and the handmaids are told this story repeatedly. The
sentence “give me children, or else I die”, taken directly from this biblical story, shows up
twice in the novel itself to show how the indoctrination has affected the narrator. The first
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time the sentence shows up the reader might think they are Offred’s own words, unless he or
she is familiar with the biblical story. The second time, however, we are told the origin of the
line and we see the way it has been “drummed into” the handmaids. The Commander reads
them a ‘bedtime story’ from the Bible that they keep locked up so the women cannot read
from it on their own.
It’s the usual story, the usual stories. (…) Then comes the mouldy old Rachel and
Leah stuff we had drummed into us at the Centre. Give me children, or else I die. Am I
in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? Behold my maid
Bilhah. She shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. And so on
and so forth. We had it read to us every breakfast, as we sat in the high-school
cafeteria, eating porridge with cream and brown sugar (99).
The fact that Offred uses the words ‘drummed into’ shows her awareness of the situation and
the manipulation and brainwashing that goes on. This is how the social construct of gender
comes to be what it is. There is a constant pressure to conform to what society deems as the
proper way to express gender. In Gilead’s case, the ones that refuse, or the ones who fail, are
punished in a more extreme way than they would be in reality