Hidden Intention

In chapter 30 of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood describes the story of how Offred loses her pet. Many people have had that experience, including me. However, the way Offred’s and my story go is not what you would expect.

Offred and her husband, Luke, were planning to leave their house and go to another country. They prepared everything and then found that they did not know what to do about their cat. “We could give her away, I said. One of the neighbors. Even as I said this, I saw how foolish that would be.”(192) Offred and Luke were worried that if they left the cat behind, she would start meowing and people would know they were gone. Offred did not want to go along with what Luke was thinking so she proposed anything she could think of, trying to deny where this conversation was going. Though it might sound like it, denial is not intentional. There isn’t a moment where we rationally decide to be in denial, instead, our brain automatically does it to protect us. When you’re confronted with something you can’t accept, your brain tries to make you rationalize other possibilities, no matter how far-fetched they may be. Similar to Offred, I have experienced denial related to my pets too. Standing at the end of my driveway, seeing my dad looking at a cat that had been run over and hearing him say my cat’s name put me in that same state of denial. I took no time to think, I had no control of my body. I found myself moving away from the road, screaming no repeatedly. I dropped to the ground, hiding my face, trying not to see the scene in front of me. I did not want to accept what had just been implied and my brain tried to prevent me from believing it, though a part of me was aware of the truth.

Luke decided to be the one to solve their predicament. He told Offred he’d “take care of it”. Offred immediately knows he plans on killing the cat. She sits there as he goes to find the cat and she doesn’t move until after he’s done. “You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real.” (193) Offred justified Luke calling the cat “it” by saying that’s how he was able to go through with it. I understand that Offred and Luke tried to detach themselves from their cat and tried to make this easier for them. That doesn’t mean that they were right. Simply saying “it” instead of “her” is not enough to make that decision any easier. I know that very well because my mom tried to do the same thing. She tried to make me feel better about losing my cat by suggesting we could just get another cat the next day. That didn’t change anything. No one can detach themselves from a pet that easily or quickly. That relationship exists still, no matter how much you may try to erase it. It would take someone who never truly cared for the cat to be able to go through with killing her. Sitting there and letting it happen also showed how apathetic Offred was. She could have tried to argue against it but she sat there and let Luke go through with it. Unlike her, I fought back against any comments that were made about getting a new cat. The last thing I would allow to happen was for people to act like my cat wasn’t as special as he was, like he was replaceable, like he was simply an “it”.

Not only did Offred just sit there and let it happen, but she refused to hold her husband accountable for what he did. “…because that little sacrifice,…was done for my sake as well. That’s one of the things they do. They force you to kill, within yourself.”(193) Offred tries to blame what they did on someone else, saying they were forced into making that decision. She does this to try and remove herself from what happened, knowing that if she were to accept that her husband chose to kill their cat by his own will, she also let it happen by her own will, refusing to act even though she had many chances to do so. Putting the blame on someone else makes it easier to not feel guilty, and though I understand that well, I have never been one to think like that. While Offred used any opportunity to blame others, I did not blame anyone specifically. There were many people I could blame, my family for letting my cat out, the driver for being reckless, or myself for not being there sooner and preventing it. Though placing the blame on someone besides me would in theory make me feel better, I knew that this was not something that could be blamed on one party alone. Luke and Offred knew what they were doing and they decided to go through with such an awful decision instead of trying to keep the cat alive in other ways. The cat was not of any priority to either of them, yet the killing of her required them to act how they did to rationalize and excuse it.