Illusion of Choice

In chapter 11, Offred visits the hospital for her monthly check up. She is told that her time to have a child is beginning to run out. This is obviously because she is getting older and they believe she will soon no longer be able to have children. As the doctor is doing her check up, he comes close to the sheet over her face and whispers “I could help you”. This confuses Offred as she doesn’t know what he means. He mentions he has done it before and begins sliding his hand up her leg. This is a very uncomfortable chapter to read. Offred is very scared and doesn’t know what she is supposed to do. She declines his creepy offer and leaves the hospital feeling fear and confusion. The chapter ends with the line “It’s the choice that terrifies me. A way out, a salvation”.

I believe that this chapter, though short, connects to a much larger theme in the story. Later, the Commander and Offred have a debate about what love is. Offred questions why men did what they do, asserting power over women. The only purpose for women in Gilead is to have children and to be more traditional. The Commander tells her that men essentially just got bored of women and needed something else. They needed to be more powerful over women and show their masculinity.

The connection between these two is that love is an entirely lost concept for these men. There are no more slow burn relationships. There is no more time for these people to get to know each other, go out, or find out what kind of person they are with. The Commander believes that it is better this way as men were bored with doing that and needed to just get it over with. There is no happiness nor pleasure anymore in this society. The concept of consent is something that has been entirely erased. Women no longer have a choice on what happens to their bodies.

The ceremonies are times where the Commanders have sex with the handmaid’s to see if they bear children. Offred mentions that sex is no longer something that has meaning or any pleasure at all. It is a job now, one that she has no power or choice in. She says,”It has nothing to do with passion or love or romance or any of those other notions we used to titillate ourselves with”. She also says that orgasms are not thought necessary anymore. It is a completely pleasureless act for the women and does a lot of harm to them, both physically and mentally. She is not allowed to even look at the Commander. She is forced to have sex with him so that he gets a promotion from a kid she doesn’t get to keep nor name. Another part of the ceremony is that the Commander’s wife must be in the room while he is having sex with Offred. She is forced to hold Offred in her legs as her “husband” has sex with another woman so that she may have a child. When that child is born, it goes to the Commander’s wife, the handmaid has no control over this.

Consent, choice, and love are three major things that have been taken away from these women. The men essentially laugh in their faces about it, or are too numb to it to understand why there is an issue. The doctor offering his “services” to Offred and the ceremony with the Commander are the exact same thing. In both of these cases, she mentions having a choice. That idea of choice is a form of brainwashing put on these women. There really is no choice, regardless of what she feels. No matter what, she is going to be forced to have a baby with a man she does not love in a way that does not give her pleasure. On page 94, she says “Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for”. There was no way for her to sign up for this, this was going to happen regardless. The entire ceremony leads up to this, and the ceremonies are required. There was no choice nor a form of consent. Towards the end of chapter 39, the Commander begins to do the same thing as the doctor. He rubs his hand over her leg and she feels very scared about it. He starts taking their clothes off. She says, “I lie there like a dead bird”. The chapter ends with her reminding herself to fake the pleasure, as there will be none involved.

In conclusion, the men in Gilead have no care for these women. They don’t care about consent or what the women are actually feeling. They only care about themselves, their promotions, and the pleasures they feel. The women are left with nothing but pain and the faint hope that they have control over what happens to them.