To What Point is it WRONG?
In the novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, it dives into the many different themes of sexuality, gender norms, and power in which each type of person holds in Gilead. Offred, the handmaid of Commander Fred, and our author of the story, explains to the reader the ways in which she feels when the monthly ceremony is occurring and how her body adjusts to the circumstances she has no other choice but to endure or death will come her way. In chapter sixteen, Offred is representing to the readers ways in which the ceremonies are run and while she is participating in the ceremony, Offred gets into the way she feels about her position by saying,
“What he is fucking is the lowest part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for.” (chapter 16)
In this description, the readers can understand that Offred doesn’t particularly enjoy the acts in the ceremony and does not want to call it “making love” because it isn’t passionate, but seems to have this idea that she has a “duty” and a “job” to get done that she signed up for so it makes it ok. However, how are we as readers supposed to read this and believe the same things that Offred seems to dilute her mind into believing?
When I first read this part, I was never able to grasp how she can explain that she was being raped (legally MIND YOU) but somehow making it seem so casual and how “it is what it is”. My own body had a slight chill to it, so uncomfortable by what I had just cast my eye over and almost shielded myself up to protect my own body from it, even though all I did was read it off the page. As a woman myself, it’s scary that even when I read that quote I had to think from my body’s perspective how that would feel. Unwanted intercourse is not only scary because you don’t want to do it, but you don’t have any say in which it goes. She could be in so much pain during it because she doesn’t have the power and voice to tell him, which any woman that has had to experience this could even say their breath is taken away because they are so scared for their lives that they become paralyzed. However, in the capital of Gilead, they believe it’s ok for women to experience this legally because they were born on this earth to give birth to those who really need their babies. This will affect Offred for the rest of her life as much as she wants to just shrug it off and cab really represent the realities in which women must experience rape without their consent, which is even scary that we could relate such an event to our present time.
Over the past couple of weeks since I had read that quote, the relationship actually between our author and her commander has increased into a liking relationship, with Offred sneaking over to his office every night to play games with him and talk to him with added gifts. Then more into a more romantic relationship where kissing and sex on their own time is done, of course done by commanders wants and desires. Comparing this back to our quote, I start to feel even more uncomfortable by the thoughts of them even being able to form an intimate relationship with everything they have to endure. You are having sex, that neither of them enjoy, during the ceremonies to create a child, you go your separate ways in the house, then you hang out together at the end of the day with each other like a couple of lovers? How could you say such a thing about your intercourse but then possibly create a sort of love thing for each other? I understand the fear that Offred has to experience when she goes to visit him and how the commander here is the one who started it all, but we start to read Offred falling for him and believing that she is his special maid. THAT is what the scary part of this connection is, falling for your legal rapist. His manipulation however could fool anyone, but our girl should know better, which I continued to still scream while finishing up this book. Where did this leave her? POSSIBLE death at the end, hopefully not though.
The idea of being to explain rape so causality and then proceed to create a loving relationship to one who does those acts to you is probably the most agonizing topic of this book and something that made this book so hard for me to finish. Every scene of those two talking about their connection, I felt sick to my stomach knowing what we know and every moment they tried to make cute between the two of them I couldn’t think as such.
