My Link

For my second Lit Log on The Handmaid’s Tale, I decided to write about a section of the story that resonates with me. The section in question takes place during the beginning of Chapter 25.

Offred wakes up, halfway in her cupboard instead of in bed. Cora was in the room, dropping the breakfast tray because of the sight before her. She thought Offred had run off, or even died.

After both of the women recollected themselves, Cora started to clean up the spilled food. They knew that too many questions would surround them if anybody knew about this incident. “I saw that it would be better if we could both pretend I’d eaten my breakfast after all [p.152],” Offred thought to herself.

Cora tells Offred that she’ll say the tray was dropped on the way out. That she’ll lie for her. “It pleased me that she was willing to lie for me, even in such a small thing, even for her own advantage. It was a link between us [p.152].”

This section stood out to me, as I’ve experienced links like this before. Links that are specific from person-to-person. Links that aren’t exactly in spite of someone or something else, but in support of dealing with them. They are often out of dishonesty, like this incident with Cora and Offred. But in return, a link between yourself and another will always make you closer.

My strongest example would be with my brother and our dad. My dad often checks my room during the evening to make sure that I’m doing my homework. Doesn’t matter which type of homework I’m doing, just that I’m doing it. One day though, I suppose he was just lazy because he decided to yell across the hallway instead of walking over.

“Is Xavier doing his work?” he shouted.

At that time, my brother and I were chatting and laughing about something random, being unproductive. I was at my desk with my computer shut, and he was sitting on my bed. I knew that I should have started my work by now. In fact, it was after 5:30 and my alarm for it had already gone off. What my brother did next surprised me, though.

“Yeah, he is.” my brother said to my dad. “He is doing his work.”

This moment is the connection I made to The Handmaid’s Tale. My brother pretty much lied for me, even though it wouldn’t have cost much for him to tell my dad the truth. “Even in such a small thing.”

It does get more complicated than that, however. While I didn’t start my homework, my brother was also the one conversing with me in the first place. It’s similar to how Cora would’ve never dropped her tray if Offred had just gone to sleep as normal. They were both factors in this situation. They were in this together. There was a link.

Between the story and my own experience, the actual stakes have both similarities and differences. Offered mentioned that “Rita would get surly if she had to cook a second breakfast [p.152],” and the same would go for my dad if he had to tell me himself to do my work. But then I would have to ask, why would they get “surly?”

With my dad, it’s about discipline and integrity. Being able to have responsibility on my own, for when I eventually leave this house and live my own life. Or at least prove to him that I have responsibility, rather. With Rita, however, it could be more due to the world they are living in. Gilead is such a stricter and ordered place than the one we live in now. It’s more run by fear than integrity. I would argue integrity barely matters at all, actually, with the clubs and Mayday resistance existing. But with so many live-or-death decisions surrounding these characters, little mishaps like ruining a breakfast simply can’t afford to happen as much as they do in real life. They have to be hidden.

Knowing the consequences of the truth, significant or insignificant, is what I believe creates the strongest link between people. The link is especially evident when they do not have to tell each other about the consequences directly. Sometimes–even if the means of achieving them are dishonest–there are just better outcomes. Both of the people involved, those people that have a link, will know that.

“Well, get to it.” my brother said, walking out of my room.