In this chapter we get a sense of Offred’s current conditions, both living and emotional. We are in the present, in her current-day surroundings which she describes in detail. (The narrator is now speaking in the present tense.) Words and images are never lost with Atwood (or the narrator, if your teacher likes distinguishing between the two), so all the things described by Offred you can be assured will be of significance. The bedroom in which she sleeps, alone, is minimally furnished. It’s mainly a description of absence, devoid of many things that would be found in a bedroom except for the essentials...chair, table, lamp, cupboard. A window with a cushion, two white curtains, an archaic, oval rug on the floor. Offred gives us many clues to what this world is going to be like. One short sentence says much: “A return to traditional values” (7).
The wreath on the ceiling that she describes will also be of vast importance. It’s also an item speaking to the idea of absence. There was once a chandelier there. But it was removed prior to Offred’s arrival due to the fact you can tie a rope to it. (The windows are also locked and shatter-proof.) Suicide will not be tolerated in Offred’s world. But remember this wreath. Its symbolism will evolve over the course of the novel.
On the wall is a framed picture of flowers (with no glass, of course). Flowers will be plentiful throughout the novel so pay close attention to those as well—not just the kinds and colors, but their state of freshness and decay. And, in the case of this representation on the wall, their occasions of artificiality. Their fakeness. These are watercolor flowers.
We also get an early idea of how Atwood will play with language (word play). All the items in the room give “the kind of touch they like” (7). Again the idea of human touch arises. Or rather, the lack of it and need for it. What she implies in this line is that there’s definitely a touch the current regime doesn’t want — actual human touch. Also with language, Atwood (through Offred) will give statements considered to be cliché and repurpose them. “Waste not want not,” is an old cliché about not wasting household things. Offred, like a household object, is not being wasted by the regime. But yet she’s not an object. She has feelings and wants human things, like human touch. “I am not being wasted. Why do I want?” (7).
The audience is also introduced to Aunt Lydia flashbacks. Aunt Lydia, and Moira later, will be a constant voice in her head. Here it’s to help her come to terms with the sparsely furnished room. Offred will invoke the memory of Aunt Lydia again when she is reconciling herself to at least being alive still. Aunt Lydia was “in love with either/or” (8), meaning a dichotomy. You’re either good or bad, alive or dead, etc. So we see Offred’s mentality has been shaped quite a bit by this Aunt Lydia. We can assume there was an ample amount of brainwashing going on in that old gymnasium.
The reader then gets a view of how Offred’s daily life works. “Time here is measured in bells,” she says (8). That and no mirrors (which would mean vanity, caring about your looks) reminds her of a nunnery, a place where nuns live. The clothes she will put on are much like a nun’s as well except that the long, conservative dress is red, “the color of blood, which defines us” (8). The head dress she has to wear seems at first like nuns’ clothing yet they are more like blinders for a horse that’s being steered in a particular direction. She extends this metaphor by saying that her dress gathers in a yoke, another common metaphor for oppression. Alternately, she likens the sparse room to one where women in “reduced circumstances” (8).
This is referring to women who have trouble paying rent because they are poor and single due to a family death or leaving an abusive spouse. There are even charities for such situations. This piling on of multiple meanings and images (her room as a nunnery and a boarding house for women in reduced circumstances) you’ll see throughout the novel as well.
She discusses the sitting room as Victorian. Much of the new society, Gilead, will be dressed in throwbacks to former ages, ages much further back than the American 50s, 60s, 70s. The Victorian era refers to the reign of Queen Victoria in the 19th century. This was an age of strict morals and motherly, stately appearances. Also of a highly defined class structure.
The reader is also introduced to all-important colors for the novel. Red and blue (red for Handmaids, blue for Commander’s Wifes...red for blood and passion, blue the color worn by the Virgin Mother Mary). Black is the color reserved for the Commanders. Black is power, elegance, fear, death. We are also introduced to the convex, fisheye mirror of the staircase where Offred will see her distorted image at pivotal points throughout her narrative. She sees herself now as a distorted image of fairy-tale red. Little Red Riding Hood, perhaps?
We learn that this Commander’s Wife is impatient and old, “pacing back and forth...the soft tap of her cane” (9). We learn about the Marthas, dressed in dull green. They are servants of the household also, of lower class and non-threatening. The Marthas in this household are Rita and Cora. Rita sees Offred as a menace, perhaps a slut. Rita and Cora had once discussed her “decision” to be a Handmaid instead of going to The Colonies (which we will find out isn’t much of a choice at all; Handmaids are used for reproductive purposes whereas those in The Colonies clean up radioactive waste).
Even though Rita is unpleasant, Offred longs to stay in the kitchen to talk and listen to the Marthas. This could also be an “echo of the past,” remembering times sitting in the kitchen, talking with her mother. Apparently, Cora is nicer to her than Rita. Also, the Marthas gossip. The Marthas know things. Their own little grapevine, the Marthas pass information amongst Households and themselves. Not to Offred, though. They’re not allowed to “fraternize” with Handmaids. We see the fear of oppression here. An ideology that’s forced onto the household members. A forced separation between people of different functions.
The word “fraternize” reminds her of something Luke once said (you’ll find out later that Luke was Offred’s husband). Fraternize comes from Latin and is a masculine word. There isn’t a similar word used for females. If there were such a word, it would be “sororize.” We get an inkling that we have been living in a male-dominated world (in the novel’s world as well as our own). The reader will find that the current world is even more of a patriarchy than the previous decades. It’s a throwback to 1) Old Testament patriarchy, 2) early modern English patriarchy, 3) Victorian-era patriarchy. The first two eras are especially times of both infantilizing and objectifying young women.
So, at the end of the chapter, Offred is given a few tokens by Rita to head off on her Little Red Riding Hood adventure to go shopping for the Household. Here as well as earlier in the chapter where she sees the pink, dusty runner in the hall, the reader can imagine Offred is allowed little fairytale journeys: “like a path through the forest…it shows [her] the way” (8).
It seems she has a journey ahead (and possibly some freedom therein) but the path is always laid out for her. Freedom and adventure—she definitely is afforded neither.