Thoughts on a Handmaid's Night

Chapter 17: pg 96-99

The ceremony has just finished, and now Offred is back in her room. The narrator seems to have become very accustomed to the ritual with the Commander; she doesn’t show any signs of being significantly shaken.

“I rub the butter over my face, work it into the skin of my hands…” (96) Offred uses the butter she stole from the dining table earlier as face cream. She explains that ‘vanities’ aren’t meant for the handmaids. “We are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important.” This poses an interesting question about how the handmaids are treated. While the inside of a container is obviously the most important part of its purpose, personally, I would also care about the outside. However, the only reason to tend to the outside of such a container is for its presentability, and to relate back to Offred, its vanity. The fact that Commanders don’t care for the outsides of their handmaids means that their presentability doesn’t matter, which checks out with how they are covered, and mostly kept inside the house. The important difference, however, is that since these ‘containers’ are human, they care about their own vanity, resulting in tricks like the butter being widespread among handmaids.

“To such devices [using butter] have we descended.” (97) I find ‘descended’ an interesting verb for the narrator to use here. While it emphasizes that using butter is a worse solution than in the Before Times, ‘descended’, to me, makes it seem as though the handmaids downgraded to butter on their own accord, as opposed to a more force-based word. Maybe the reason for this word choice was to show that society as a whole ‘descended’ to this state, forcing the handmaids to use butter for vanity.

“Buttered, I lie on my single bed, flat, like a piece of toast.” (97) I am curious about why the author chose toast for this simile. It successfully connects with being ‘buttered’ and ‘flat’, as well as portraying Offred as nothing but an object. Additionally, toast comes from bread, which is considered a source of nourishment and life worldwide, the same way the handmaids represent life in Gilead. Going further down this thought, toast could mean that Offred has been burned, making her not as pure or lively as she used to be.

“I want to steal something.” (97) In this sentence, and the paragraph before, every sentence except one begins with “I want”. It starts off with “I want Luke here so badly” and escalates into Offred wanting to be valuable. Then, all of a sudden, she talks about stealing, as if it was a thought that just came to her head. While this stream of consciousness is a fair explanation, it is also interesting how Offred turns value into stealing. Since handmaids are treated as nothing, and meant to be as invisible as possible, rebelling is a way to become visible, and as a result, valued.

“I like this. I am doing something, on my own.” (97) The comma in the second sentence, breaking regular syntax, splits what Offred likes into two ideas. The first is that she is actually doing something instead of lying on her bed, breaking her mundane cycle of living. She relishes the freedom she gets in the middle of the night to move instead of sit. The second part that she enjoys is that her actions are her own. By breaking rules, she can now immediately ignore all commands, giving her freedom from the external restrictions she has.

“He too is illegal, here, with me, he can’t give me away.” (98) There is an interesting power dynamic between Guardians and Handmaids throughout the entire story, and it is only accentuated more by this encounter. My immediate thoughts about Offred sneaking around were to question what she has to be afraid of. After all, she is valuable as long as she is physically valuable; her actions, and theoretically her mental state shouldn’t matter. But after more thought, I realized that is not guaranteed. What happens to handmaids who are rebellious? Was the previous handmaid in Offred’s room gone because she became infertile, or for a different reason? I assume these are the questions that Offred is wrestling with as she sneaks through the house. As for Nick, he is completely breaking the rules with nothing backing him up. He is the lowest level of man, meaning he is as invaluable as the next, compared to Offred, who is at least valued for her fertility. This makes me believe that despite the Guardians having weapons and controlling important posts in Gilead, it is in fact the handmaids who have more power.