The Handmaids are still “rustling” and waiting for the Prayvaganza to begin. Offred still sprinkles in “echoes of the past” throughout, like how she says the Commander in charge of the ceremonies is “balding and squarely built…like a football coach” (218). There aren’t such things as coaches anymore. Again we have incongruity (as with the fairytale land in the previous chapter). Offred says he doesn’t seem to fit the role of a Commander. The suit doesn’t look right on him. She makes a joke with a Biblical reference, “Be fruitful and multiply” (218). This is a reference from Genesis 1:28. “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea…” God was telling Adam and Eve, after leaving the Garden of Eden, that they should make babies and take over the Earth from the animals. Offred makes the joke that perhaps God wasn’t referring to such a disgusting man as this Commander when he had populating the Earth in mind. But this verse has another significance, and if it’s rolling...