Summary: Chapter 13
I’m a cloud, congealed around a central
object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I
am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
After dinner, Offred feels bored. She remembers paintings
of harems: she used to think they were about eroticism but now realizes they
depicted the boredom of the women. She wonders if men find bored
women erotic. She thinks of the Red Center, and how Moira was brought
there three weeks after her own arrival. Moira and Offred pretended
not to know one another because friendships aroused suspicion. They
arranged to meet in the restroom to exchange a few words, which
made Offred feel terribly happy. At the Center everyone had to “Testify”
about their past lives. Janine testified that she was gang-raped
at fourteen. After she finished speaking, the Aunts asked the group
whose fault the rape was, and the rest of the Handmaids chanted
in unison that it was Janine’s fault because she led them on. When
she cried, they called her a crybaby.
Offred says she used to think of her body as an instrument
of pleasure or of transportation, an instrument she controlled.
Now, others define her body as nothing more than a uterus. She hates
facing menstruation every month because it means failure. Her only function
is childbearing. Offred remembers running through the woods, trying
to escape with her daughter. She could not run very fast, because
her child slowed her down. She remembers hearing shots. She and
her daughter fell to the ground, hiding; Offred begged her daughter
to be quiet, but she was too young to understand. She remembers
being physically restrained and watching her daughter get dragged
away from her.
Summary: Chapter 14
After bathing and eating, Offred must attend the Ceremony
with the rest of the household. The Commander is always late for
the Ceremony. Serena sits while Offred kneels on the floor. Rita,
Cora, and Nick stand behind Offred. Nick’s shoe touches Offred’s.
She shifts her foot away, but he moves his foot so it touches hers
again. As usual, Serena allows them to watch the news while they
wait. Television stations from Canada are blocked, and most of the
programming is religious. The news reports that spies were caught
smuggling “national resources” across the border, and that five
Quakers have been arrested. The newscaster declares that the “resettlement
of the Children of Ham” is proceeding, with thousands of people
forced to resettle in the Dakotas.
Offred remembers how she and Luke purchased fake passports when
they decided to escape. They told their daughter they were going
on a picnic and planned to give her a sleeping pill when they crossed
the border so that she would not be questioned or give them away.
They packed nothing in their car because they did not want to arouse
suspicion.
Summary: Chapter 15
The Commander arrives and proceeds to unlock an ornate
box. He takes out a Bible and reads to everyone. Offred wonders
what it is like to be a man like him, surrounded by women who watch
his every move. The Commander reads passages that emphasize childbearing.
As the Commander reads, his Wife begins to sob softly. The Commander
reads the story of Rachel and Leah from the book of Genesis. Rachel
was barren, so she urged her husband to have a child by her maid,
Bilhah. At the Red Center, this story was drilled into the Handmaids.
During lunch, they played recordings of a male voice reciting the
Beatitudes, so the Aunts would not have to commit the sin of reading.
Offred remembers the time when Moira decided to fake an illness,
hoping to escape by bribing one of the men in the ambulance with
sex. When she tried it on an Angel, he reported her. The Aunts tortured
Moira by beating her feet with steel cables, the punishment for
a first offense. The -punishment for a second offense was beating
the hands. Aunt Lydia reminded the women that hands and feet did
not matter for their purpose.
Analysis: Chapters 13–15
If some of Gilead’s rhetoric borrows from the feminist
movement, some of it utterly contradicts the feminist movement.
We see this when Offred remembers the group taunting of Janine.
When Janine tells the story of her gang-rape at the age of fourteen,
the group, at Aunt Lydia’s prompting, chants that the rape was Janine’s
fault, that she led them on, that God allowed the rape to happen
in order to teach Janine a lesson. These sentiments contrast with
those espoused by feminists, who fight against blaming the victim
of sexual violence and argue that leading someone on never justifies
rape. This incident also illustrates the way Gilead turns women
against women. Testifying is a powerful way of breaking women, for
they are blamed not by their oppressors, men, but by their fellows
in oppression, women. The effectiveness of the group condemnation becomes
clear when Offred relates that the next week, Janine said without
prompting that the rape was her fault because she led them on. These
women are coerced into condemning their peer, because they know
they will be punished if they do not. Horribly, however, they begin
to enjoy the condemnation. When they call Janine a crybaby, Offred
says, “We meant it, which was the bad part.” They despise her weakness,
and for a moment they truly believe the ideology Aunt Lydia feeds
them.
