What Role Does Offred Play In The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale tells the story of Offred: a young woman, born under a different name, trapped in the patriarchal society of Gilead with the role of a handmaid to a commander. Offred’s role as a handmaid is to become pregnant in lieu of the Commander’s wife who is too old to do so. Offred remembers life before she became a handmaid when she possessed the freedom to choose her own career, education, and romantic partners. Handmaids undergo a boot-camp-like training at the Rachel and Leah Center where they teach proper behavior based on misinterpreted Biblical text. Despite the obvious hostilities between Offred and the Commander who is her scheduled rapist, their relationship develops as the story progresses to a point

where he instills within her an attitude of rebellion strong enough to lead to her eventual escape. The Commander, whether intentionally or not, played an integral role in the shift in Offred’s attitude from complacency to rebellion ultimately leading to her freedom.
A defining characteristic of the handmaids is a complete lack of power or authority over anything; the Commander gave Offred a taste of this power. Early on in the novel, Atwood provides the reader with a glimpse into Offred’s desire for power over another person—any person. Offred describes young boys guarding the gate not yet old enough to receive wife/handmaid assignments of their own who instead of touching women for themselves “touch with their eyes” (Atwood 22). In an attempt to assert some control over their feelings, she swings her hips as she passes the boys. She then describes the feeling, “I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there” (Atwood 22). Actions similar to this are the little bits of power handmaids can wield. After her account of the ceremony with the Commander and his wife, back in her room lotioning her face and hands with butter Offred explains how handmaids receive no luxuries such as lotion being that they “are containers, it’s the only the insides of our bodies that are important,” handmaids fall victim to objectification and dehumanization. Simultaneously, the Commander desires intimacy with a woman. Under the patriarchal ruling, intimacy became obsolete. Wives no longer hold the affection of their husbands as they each have specifically assigned roles in which there is no place for intimacy. In order to satiate this desire, the Commander reaches out to Offred to meet and develop a relationship outside of their societal duties. Offred sees the Commander’s desire for her as a weakness of his and her desire for it as a weakness of hers (Atwood 136). As a result of this taste of power, for the remainder of the tale, Offred pursues power through other means. She realizes that, while out of her control, the kitchen staff, Cora and Rita, depend on her to get pregnant in order to break up the monotony of their roles—to introduce some excitement—Offred’s being pregnant or not gives her power over them. Furthermore, Offred begins to take control over her own life. She forms alliances with her assigned shopping partner, Ofglen, and begins to dwell on means of suicide as a final act of control over herself and her Commander’s house. Upon Offred’s extraction from the Commander’s house, Serena Joy and the Commander press into the men performing the extraction about what Offred did wrong, to which they confess that she committed a violation of state secrets (Atwood 294). The violation likely occurred in her formation of an alliance with Ofglen, a member of the underground, who committed suicide rather than undergo the process of becoming an unwoman—an alliance that may never have occurred had Offred not grown bold in her desire for power.
Additionally, the Commander fostered a sense of rebellion within Offred in their private meetings.

These meetings began when the Commander sent Nick, their coiffure, to tell Offred to meet the Commander in his private study (Atwood 99). Nick encountered Offred in the Commander’s wife’s sitting room sneaking out during the night. Offred initially was fearful of sneaking out, this being the first time (97). Seeing Nick doing so in a casual manner under the direct instruction of the Commander provided Offred with her first sense of the actual freedom she possesses. At first, the Commander and Offred played a couple games of Scrabble before her return to her room. During subsequent meetings, the Commander offered Offred a variety of additional services. These services escalated over the course of the next meetings. The Commander began providing her magazines and books from before the purges to read through. He answers questions she has about the outside world and, at her request, provides her with some lotion to smooth her skin. Prior to Offred’s meetings with the Commander she had no clue how simple it is for her to break the rules. As a result of her meetings, she realized that she can leave her room and sneak about the house, or out of the house, at night without repercussions. After the Commander’s Wife suggested that Offred seek intercourse with Nick since it is likely that the Commander is no longer fertile, Offred began to visit Nick on a frequent basis during the night. Larson points out in the chapter entitled “Historical Notes on The Handmaid’s Tale” that by the sheer existence of the tapes (the fictional source of the Handmaid’s Tale) Nick must have had involvement in Offred’s escape (309 italics Atwood’s). When the van arrives to take Offred away Nick intercepts her on her way down the stairs leading from her room and he tells her, “It’s all right. It’s Mayday. Go with them” (Atwood 293). His knowledge of the identity of the men in the van points to his

helping with the arrangement for Offred’s extraction. Ultimately, had the Commander never demonstrated to Offred the extent of her actual freedom, she may never have interacted with Nick to the extent necessary for him to arrange her freedom.
Conclusively, the Commander rekindled a desire within Offred for love. By the way of flashbacks, Offred allows the reader to step into her life prior to the foundation of Gilead. In her previous life, Offred had a husband whom she chose for herself to love. By this husband, Luke, Offred had a daughter, additionally, she had a pesky mother who had a tendency to drop by her and Luke’s apartment and provide unsolicited insight into her political perspectives, and lastly, Offred had her best friend and former roommate, Moira. This small group of people represent those whom Offred had the greatest affection, she lost all these individuals as a result of the foundation of Gilead. Moira stuck around the longest as they were both trained at the same Rachel and Leah Center prior to Moira escaping. Time and time again, Offred reflects on her desire for Luke and her daughter, primarily for Luke. Upon walking past the wall where bodies of traitors are hung, Offred presents her desire for Luke, “What I feel is partly relief, because none of these men is Luke. Luke wasn’t a doctor. Isn’t” (Atwood, 33). Offred walks past the wall to see if her husband is hanging there among the criminals in this instance of discovering his absence, she rejoices in hope for his life by referring to him first in the past-tense and then correcting into present-tense, she desires to find him and to find him alive. Furthermore, her separation from Luke led her to desire, once again, to love someone. When she first moved into the Commander’s house, upon exploring her room, Offred discovered a stain on her mattress, “The stains on the mattress. . . .Old love; there’s no other kind of love in this room now. When I saw that, the evidence left by two people, of love or something like it, desire at least, at least touch, between two people now perhaps old or dead, I covered the bed again and lay down on it. . . .I wanted to feel Luke beside me” (Atwood, 52). This desire is only magnified by her involvement with the Commander. Her involvement with the Commander ultimately opened the door for Offred to begin a romantic relationship with Nick. In the moments she has with Nick, Offred works to memorize all the details of his body. She failed to do this with Luke and the remaining memories she has for him had begun to fade quickly (Atwood, 269). Memorizing Nick was her attempt to again experience love in a way which is unforgettable and cannot be taken away from her like her previous loves.