Offred is in her room after returning from Jezebel’s. There’s a storm coming. Lightning but no thunder. The searchlights are off, power outage or Serena Joy’s demand...which makes the reader wonder if something might happen that night. So we have a feeling of expectation, both eerie and dreaded, about what could occur very soon. It’s no coincidence that the first phrase of the chapter is “the heat at night” (259). Heat is passion. Animals are said to be “in heat” when it’s time for them to mate and reproduce. And it’s night. (Tangent alert. The heat at night or of the night is often a topic in pop culture: In the Heat of the Night, movie; songs by Ray Charles, Sandra and Brian Adams.) She’s taken off her spangles, her glittery clothes (spangles are also a type of candy produced from the 1950s to ’80s). She’s wearing her red habit (nun’s clothes) now and tries to rid herself of any evidence of the Commander and Jezebel’s, smell and purple lipstick and all. Serena Joy comes to take her to Nick and she...
Chapter 40
Part XIII: Night
Chapter Summary
During a midnight rendezvous arranged by Serena Joy, Offred meets Nick in his room above the garage, where their awkward, forced encounter evolves from clinical discussion of artificial insemination to a moment of genuine connection, though Offred admits to romanticizing parts of her retelling. As she struggles to accurately reconstruct the events, Offred reveals her conflicting emotions: imagining Serena Joy's judgment from the kitchen below, feeling guilty about betraying Luke, and realizing that despite her initial assumption this would be a one-time affair, she wants more from this "echo of an echo" of romance.