Analysis Of When Commander Marie By Margaret Atwood

In addition, author Atwood also creates the once educated and free-spirited women, who eventually end up with pathetic destinies as working ladies at the secret night club, Jezebel’s. When Commander Waterford is introducing the working ladies at Jezebel’s, who were once educated women like sociologists and lawyers, he says, “Well, we have quite a collection…I’m told you can have quite a good conversation with her if all you feel like is talking. They prefer it here, too” (238). Author Margaret reveals that the women who could not bear living as handmaids choose to become working ladies, trading their bodies and their knowledge to the powerful Commanders for survival.
In a pathetic tone, Atwood specifically depicts Moira, who has always been

the spiritual support of the narrator and later becomes a working lady as well. Moira symbolizes the spirit of rebellion in the narrator’s mind. She was once a transgendered, independent, and astute college student as well as one of the most troublesome and rebellious handmaids at the Center, causing all kinds of troubles for the Aunts. However, when meeting Moira at the nightclub accidently, the narrator says, “She is frightening me now, because what I hear in her voice is indifference, a lack of volition. Have they really done it to her then, taken away something -what? -that used to be so central to her?” (Atwood 249). Author Atwood uses the narrator to reveal that Moira has lost her gallantry under the oppression of the Gileadean system. Margaret makes the narrator depict Moira as the most courageous and inspiring woman in the narrator’s memory only to make Moira’s desperation upon their accident reunion at Jezebel’s even more pathetic. The dramatic contradiction not only represents the tragic and painful transition that Moira has gone through, but also portrays how powerless these educated women become in the prison of patriarchy, who eventually lose their dignity and kneel down for survival, just as obedient as the rest of the women. Atwood indicates that the pathetic ending of this group of woman is the failure of the education, consciousness, and many merits women once held dear before.