Broken Facades

"Without his uniform he looks smaller, older, like something dried. The trouble is that I can't be, with him, any different from the way I usually am with him. Usually I'm inert."

    In this moment, just before she has sex with the Commander, Offred sees the second facade deconstruction of her night at Jezebels. Moira's appearance at the club was the first, but both her and the Commander shed parts of themselves that Offred has counted on since she met them.

   Moira didn't panic when the past society shut down her financial account, she took charge when Janine's sanity started slipping, and she carefully tricked an Aunt (armed with a cattle prod) to escape. To Offred, Moira was "swashbuckling" and "daring". For years, Moira's braveness inspired Offred's ideas of a strong woman, so seeing this braveness squelched in a place like Jezebels shakes Offred's perceptive foundation, making her much less "inert".

   The Gilead society subdued Moira, and this doesn't help how she sees the Commander. Up until the above quote, Offred notes that the Commander has the power to get rid of her at a moment's notice if she doesn't comply in meeting him at night. This constant threat gives him an edge of power that emphasizes his position in his region of Gilead, but he does not order her into explicitly sexual favors; he asks her to play Scrabble, breaks game and Gileadean rules by providing lotions and magazines, treating her with an almost fatherly intrigue in her manners and shows of precocity in their games.

    In the hotel, however, he sheds all of his power. There is no Scrabble, no pen, and no uniform, just remnants of his position ("something dried"). His facade is long gone. This begins once Offred is in the hotel bathroom, reflecting over the night in front of the "ample mirror" (Chapter 39, page 253). She calls herself "a wreck", and despite seeing her old friend, she is as "disheveled" as her used outfit. The Commander is waiting for her, but she wants to ruminate on the disappointment she just experienced. She looks past the risk in angering, or even merely annoying, him, so she figuratively begins to strips him of his high rank before they sleep together.

      The fact that both Moira and the Commander lose their original faces doesn't just change their appearance, it emphasizes Offred's differences as our narrator. Offred expresses a lot of thought and ideas in how she could escape or how the Aunts, Marthas, Wives, Commanders, and other officials assert their power, but she never acts on her own, the way that Moira does throughout the book, or shows the same level of pride that the Commander manages to exhibit in book and social knowledge. In comparison to him and Moira, Offred is a passive character. However, Offred's lack of action doesn't jade her position as the narrator because it brings out the level of power that surrounds her in Gilead. Her thoughts are contained, and this theocratic government served to keep them that way, showing her observers the power of a whole society in comparison to one person.

Image of Offred and the Commander is courtesy of The SciFi Movie Page
Image of Offred and Moira is courtesy of the Elizabeth McGovern Webpage
Image of Woman in a Jar is courtesy of 123 Royalty Free Stock Photos

Rebellion: The Irony of The Republic of Gilead

"There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with."
       
Obscenity: The character or quality of being obscene; indecency; lewdness.


         In context with the entire story of The Handmaids Tale, this quote summarizes the flaws of Gilead. Part of what makes the society a dystopia is dehuminization and the lack of privacy that is justified by the term "security", but there are a number of moments that "secretive" and "forbidden" items and words seep through the cracks of this tale's government.

           Up to this point, Offred has taken account of the methods by which the Handmaids share their names, secrets, and gossip similar to the type that is passed between Moira and Offred in the bathroom stall. Without direct eye contact and awareness of every sound, they each get away with passing through the rules. They even purloin items like butter, small flowers, and condiment packets to gain some power in their submissive roles as vessels. These furtive actions give the Handmaids "a spell" over the Aunts, the Commanders, the Wives, and other officials.

           From the Offred's point of view in the story, there are even a select few that has the upper hand through secretive and casual means. Ofglen, for instance, seems to be the only Handmaid that has ties to the rebel group that hides among the other Handmaids and brings the officials down to the "common denominator" by feeding bits of information to Offred. Moira "deflates" the officials (particularly Aunt Lydia in context with this chapter and quote) through her gossip. Even Janice has some power by gaining favor of the Wives and Aunts through complete compliance.

            Despite the lengths to which the Aunts and Eyes guard the Handmaids from obscenities, the methods are useless. Often, the Handmaids are generators of the obscenities, be it through petty thievery or gossip, because they want the power over the authoritative figures of the society. In other words, Gilead's governmental mandates engenders the obscenities they try to prevent.

Definition of obscenity courtesy of Dictionary.com
Image courtesy of The Guardian: January 2013 article "The Handmaid's Tale In Pictures"

"Small" Things Matter Too

"Today it makes me think of a hat, the large-brimmed hats women used to wear at some period during the old days: hats like enormous halos, festooned with fruit and flowers, and the feathers of exotic birds; hats like an idea of paradise, floating just above the head, a thought solidified." (Ch. 22; pg 128)

       While studying chapter 22 of The Handmaids Tale, I noticed the importance of the attire in the caste system of Gilead. The Handmaids are dipped in red, the Wives are dipped in blue, the Marthas are draped in green, and the Econowives are striped to suggest their fertility. In the quote above, Offred's musing suggests the great importance of the seemingly smaller things in her life that she sees and wears.

         In context with Gilead, hats are nothing more than shields from the long-term effects of hours out in sunlight. Particularly for the Handmaids, hats cover vulnerable parts of the body the way the red wool dresses cover the Handmaids. Offred is probably wearing this hat, so the first mention of a "hat" may draw attention to her winged shield. However, Offred turns the musing away from it in order to reminisce on the exocitism of past hats, using words like "halos", "fruit and flowers", and "exotic birds".

        In light of the situation, these words boost her thought of past hats and appearances, because by comparison, the hats of the Handmaids also cover the head  are also "large-brimmed" and "like enormous halos". The difference between the winged hat and her recollections is that the bouyance ("floating") of the imagined hat. It takes her away from her present situation, like "an idea of paradise" and holds more individualism as a "thought solidified. She completely forgets about her shield in order to escape her present place as a Handmaid.

        The imagined hat is a metaphor for the small things that Offred misses. Throughout the book she muses on her habits and the items she owned and her loved ones, such as Luke, her daughter, and Moira before prior to her escape. However, she avoids thinking hard about her past loved ones to the extent that she reminisces about items like the hat. Unlike the idea of Luke's death (or life), and the life of her daughter, the hat keeps her mind from going over the psychological edge by allowing her to revel only in the picturesque ideals of the past. In its own way, the hat sustains some of her sanity by keeping her attention away from everything of the past and probable future, bringing to life an adage that she may remember later on:

  

Hat image courtesy of Blanche's Place
Simple Things quote and image courtesy of QU 301 South Africa