When I read “The Handmaid’s Tale”, I keep coming back to how deeply unsettling it is to witness the way Gilead controls women’s bodies through what they would consider ritual. When I read chapter 16, pages 93-95, I felt a strong wave of discomfort, not only what happened in the Ceremony itself, but the way it was presented. As something normalized, ritualized, and even sanctified. The theme that struck me most powerfully while reading this chapter was the “Control of women’s bodies through ritualized violence”, In other words, Dehumanization. Atwood shows how intimacy and sexuality can be stripped away and replaced with mechanical obedience, and as a reader, I found myself deeply unsettled by how ordinary the characters treated it. That unease is, I think, the point I am meant to feel is the wrongness, even as the people within Gilead act as if it were normal.

The Ceremony is described with chilling simplicity. Offred lies on her back, her head is resting on Serena Joy’s lap, while the commander performs his duty. The scene is clinical, almost boring in its lack of passion. Offred acting in a way of a surrogate for the commander’s wife and himself. It is not an act of love, but an act of ownership. The commander’s position gives him power, Serena Joy’s presence is a reminder that Offred is nothing more than a Surrogate, as I stated briefly, an act of ownership and not love but Offred herself is reduced to a Vessel. What brings more discomfort to me as I read is how ritual transforms an act of violence into something the Society can call holy. Reading pages 93-94, I couldn’t stop thinking about how this ritual functions as a disguise. The Ceremony is rape, but because it has been codified into a monthly event, because it is framed as duty, because it is wrapped in the language of religion, it becomes “normal”. The normalization is what unsettles me the most. It’s one thing to imagine violence happening in secret but it’s another to imagine a whole society sitting quietly in it, repeating it and believing it to be righteous. It made me think, how much wrong can we overlook if it is dressed up as tradition?

What also makes this section uncomfortable was Offred “voice”. She doesn’t describe the event with anger or open horror. Instead, pages 94-95, she detaches herself, narrating in short, almost factual sentences. At first, I wanted her to feel a sense of rage and wrongfulness or to even resist, but then I realized that her detachment is her survival. She has no choice but to endure, and her mind protects her from pulling away. This forced me to confront the reality of her lack of power. It also makes me think of how people under oppressive systems often have to distance themselves from their own experience just to survive because they lack control, control of themselves, their bodies.

Another part of this chapter that made me feel uneasy is that Serena was involved, the commander’s wife. She sits behind offred as this “ritual” occurs, holding her hands, her body arranged to mimic a mother embracing a child. On the surface, this is supposed to show solidarity, but I felt it as a layer of cruelty. Serena Joy’s touch does not comfort, it reinforces Offred’s role as property. It is disturbing to see one woman helping to enforce the system against another, and it reminded me of how power can divide women against each other instead of uniting them.

The pages around these scenes also force me to think about intimacy itself. Offred remembers her past life with Luke, the warmth and passion they once shared. Those memories are painful for her, but also for me as a reader, because they highlight what has been stolen. Knowing what real intimacy can feel like makes the ceremony even colder. This contrast brought me sharp discomfort. The idea that a government could completely erase personal freedom that even love becomes a crime. What lingers most is the realization that this ritual is not an isolated act but part of a system. This is not about one commander, one wife, or one Handmaid. It is about the entire structure of Gilead, a structure that can make something so obviously brutal feel ordinary. That, more than anything, is what makes it concerning to read. Atwood reminds me that oppression doesn’t always come as open violence. Something it comes dressed as tradition, as duty, as ritual and once people accept that disguise, they stop questioning it. Laws that limit women’s autonomy, practices that disguise control as morality, and traditions that tell people their bodies are not their own. Atwood’s writing is disturbing because it feels too close to reality. After reading chapter 16, pages 93-95, forces me to see how ritual can normalize violence, how language can mask cruelty, and how easily people can adapt to its injustice if it is repeated often enough.