The Ceremonic Exploitation

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While reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, there was this one scene that I found particularly unsettling and intriguing where the mandatory ritual ceremony with the Commander and the Handmaid, Offred, conducts sexual intercourse. On surface level, it felt like what the author was trying to show was that the Commander was justified by the sacred duty to impregnate Offred for the reproduction of the population of Gilead which is completely understandable especially when they’re struggling in birthrate. However, delving deeper into this scene, it does symbolize how women are often exploited through the aspects of power, obedience, and control. Through this scene, Atwood uses Offred’s perspective to show the objectification of women’s bodies and the uneasiness when they’re being sexually controlled. As I read, I was extremely disturbed by the descriptive imagery that Atwood has used on the ritual between Offred and the Commander. The Ceremony is framed as an event justified by the sacredness of the Bible, but it felt like it was forced. The scene where Offred describes how the Wife and Offred are positioned, “My arms are raised, she holds my hands, each of mine in each of hers.” mimics a spiritual prayer as if it’s being done under the divines. But yet I sensed that it wasn’t spiritual, but done as an act of duty. The ritual transformed sexual intercourse as a sign of obedience, completely removing the aspects of intimacy and showed women’s role as an act of duty. Reading this, I was struck by how easily rituals can be exploited by the justification of faith and scripture, promising comfort and community, became a weapon of forced violence. My reaction reading this scene was uneasy since both roles, the Commander, and the women, had such a difference in power to the point where women could be exploited and trapped easily. For me, the Ceremony became an example on how a hierarchy of different roles with different powers, use religion as a safety net for domination and exploitation of others. What disturbed me further was the way the Ceremony reduces the women’s bodies to functional parts. In the scene where Offred observes how Serena Joy, the Wife, “is lying on her back fully clothed, except for the healthy white cotton underdrawers. Her legs are apart, she is holding my hands.” This position that Offred held emphasizes how her body is literally split off from herself. Because Offred’s upper half of her body is held by Serena Joy and the lower rest is used by the Commander, Offred is seen as a vessel rather than a human being. While the Ceremony has continued with the intercourse between the Commander and Offred, Offred kept note of the Commander’s behavior about how he treated the ritual as something to be required than desired, showing a lack of intimacy, shown form the quote, “He is preoccupied, like a man humming to himself in the shower.” I find that this scene normalized how objectification had become in Gilead when it comes to reproductive control. It wiped out women’s roles of mothers, wives, and lovers, and replaced them with wombs to be exploited against. Atwood also utilized Offred’s narration with irony which created both distance and resistance between the Commander and Offred. This one quote during the Ceremony, “This is not recreation, even for the Commander, This is serious business.” had shown how Offred had reacted. Logically, I would’ve thought she’d react with horror or disgust, but instead, she kind of narrated a flat tone as if she’s mocking the ritual. From what I’ve understood, I felt like her irony became a survival tactic. She knew that she couldn’t stop the act, so she controls the way she frames it in her mind since that’s the only thing she could control. Intellectually, I found this as a coping mechanism and way to detach herself from the brutally awkward Ceremony to stop her from breaking. Personally if I were in Offred’s position, I would’ve reacted the same way: finding ways to resist without directly rebelling. Reflecting on the Ceremony, I realize that I’m sensitive and I tend to be mirroring the discomfortness that Offred had faced along with her own strategies of surviving emotionally. I feel like the author’s intention of including and writing this scene was not just to directly show two different-gendered people having sexual intercourse, but to show the minor problem in reality of how women are treated as reproductive machines rather than actual human beings and how people can easily cover this using religion.