The narrator Offred begins the chapter by discussing her story, bringing focus on the narration itself. She is aware of an audience (though she doesn’t know who that will be, exactly, or if anyone at all—but much will be revealed in the Historical Notes at the end), and so breaks the fourth wall somewhat again. She tells the reader that she wishes it could be a traditional story with a better structure and more character insight. She wishes it could be about a traditional subject like love. She wishes it could show herself in a better light. This awareness of her narration perhaps, restores a bit of reliability for the reader. We think that if she were extremely unreliable then she would have made it more of a traditional story for the reader’s entertainment. She apologizes for the amount of trivial information (colors, flowers, mirrors, gossip?), but she had much time to spare and think. She had to endure “time heavy as fried food or thick fog” (267), and so filled it with these bits of information. Yet, these slow and heavy...