Summary: Chapter 10
Offred often sings songs in her head—“Amazing Grace” or
songs by Elvis. Most music is forbidden in Gilead, and there is
little of it in the Commander’s home. Sometimes she hears Serena
humming and listening to a recording of herself from the time when
she was a famous gospel singer. Summer is approaching, and the house
grows hot. Soon the Handmaids will be allowed to wear their summer
dresses. Offred thinks about how Aunt Lydia would describe the terrible things
that used to happen to women in the old days, before Gilead, when
they sunbathed wearing next to nothing. Offred remembers Moira throwing
an “underwhore” party to sell sexy lingerie. She remembers reading
stories in the papers about women who were murdered and raped, but
even in the old days it seemed distant from her life and unrelated
to her. Offred sits at the window, beside a cushion embroidered
with the word Faith. It is the only word
they have given her to read, and she spends many minutes looking
at it. From her window, she watches the Commander get into his car
and drive away.
Summary: Chapter 11
Offred says that yesterday she went to the doctor. Every
month, a Guardian accompanies Offred to a doctor, who tests her
for pregnancy and disease. At the doctor’s office, Offred undresses,
pulling a sheet over her body. A sheet hangs down from the ceiling,
cutting off the doctor’s view of her face. The doctor is not supposed
to see her face or speak to her if he can help it. On this visit,
though, he chatters cheerfully and then offers to help her. He says
many of the Commanders are either too old to produce a child or
are sterile, and he suggests that he could have sex with her and
impregnate her. His use of the word “sterile” shocks Offred, for
officially sterile men no longer exist. In Gilead, there are only
fruitful women and barren women. Offred thinks him genuinely sympathetic
to her plight, but she also realizes he enjoys his own empathy and
his position of power. After a moment, she declines, saying it is
too dangerous. If they are caught, they will both receive the death
penalty. She tries to sound casual and grateful as she refuses,
but she feels frightened. To revenge her refusal, the doctor could
falsely report that she has a health problem, and then she would
be sent to the Colonies with the “Unwomen.” Offred also feels frightened,
she realizes, because she has been given a way out.
Summary: Chapter 12
It is one of Offred’s required bath days. The bathroom
has no mirror, no razors, and no lock on the door. Cora sits outside,
waiting for Offred. Offred’s own naked body seems strange to her,
and she finds it hard to believe that she once wore bathing suits,
letting people see her thighs and arms, her breasts and buttocks.
Lying in the bath, she thinks of her daughter and remembers the
time when a crazy woman tried to kidnap the little girl in the supermarket.
The authorities in Gilead took Offred’s then-five-year-old child
from her, and three years have passed since then. Offred has no
mementos of her daughter. She remembers Aunt Lydia saying women
should not get attached to things, and should “cultivate poverty
of spirit.” Aunt Lydia cited the biblical sentiment “Blessed are
the meek,” but she did not go on, as the Bible does, to add “for
they shall inherit the earth.”
Sometimes Offred thinks of her daughter as a ghost. She
muses that the authorities were right: it is easier to think of
your stolen children as dead. Cora, impatient, calls to her, and
Offred gets out the bath. She looks down at her ankle, and sees
the tattoo that Gilead places on all Handmaids. After the bath,
she eats dinner, even though she does not feel hungry. The food
is bland. Offred remembers Aunt Lydia saying that Handmaids are
not allowed coffee, alcohol, or nicotine. She thinks of Serena and
the Commander, eating below her, and wonders if the Commander ever
notices his Wife. Handmaids are not allowed to keep uneaten food,
but Offred wraps a pat of butter in a piece of the napkin and hides
it in her shoe.
Analysis: Chapters 10–12
By this point in the novel, plentiful clues have clarified
the Handmaids’ role. Serena’s hatred of Offred, the Handmaids’ obsession with
fertility (“Blessed be the fruit”; “May the Lord open” is how Handmaids
greet one another), the references to declining birthrates, and
the visit to the doctor all suggest that Handmaids exist to bear
the children of their Commanders. In this extremely patriarchal
world, men cannot be called sterile. If a woman fails to conceive,
she is labeled “barren,” and no one considers that the man’s sterility
may have been the reason. Gilead adopts premodern beliefs and rejects
modern science in order to glorify men. Yet the doctor’s comments
to Offred show that the belief is adopted only officially. Privately,
people realize that men, especially older men like the Commanders,
can be sterile.
The doctor’s offer to Offred suggests the limits of totalitarianism, and
the inability of any state to control human society. Ideology may
decree that Commanders can father children, but it cannot make infertile
men fertile. It may outlaw the word “sterile,” but people realize
sterility exists. It may outlaw sexual impulses and passion, but
men like the doctor still lust for strange women. Outlawed activities
go on beneath Gilead’s surface, including the secret impregnation
of fertile women by lower-class men like the doctor. The universal
need for children is central to the novel—in one way or another,
it motivates all the characters. Arguably, the need for children
created Gilead’s entire oppressive system.
