Friday, April 17, 2009
this is starting to become tedious
In the beginning of chapter 24, Offred reveals that her name is Offred now, which means she used to go by another name. However, her former name isn’t revealed and she has to forget secret name and past life. No matter what experiences she may have gone or will go through, I do not believe she will ever be able to forget about her past. Such memories are encoded and stored within the mind for the rest someone’s life. Offred also reveals that she is thirty-three years old with brown hair. Given that description, it confirmed my belief that she is a young and pretty woman. In chapter 25, an arrangement is made where Offred visits the Commander two or three nights a week. In this society, a handmaid is only supposed to be with a Commander once a month as an attempt to become pregnant. However, by visiting multiple times a week, it seems that interaction between the Commander and handmaid are no longer just strictly business. To me, the continuous interaction means that the two are meeting more for pleasure now. The only problem with this is how the society views handmaids. Handmaids are only there for reproduction and Commanders should have pleasure with their wife instead of the handmaid. This “norm” of society seems to be questioned by this certain situation and it makes me curious to know what might happen if it was revealed.
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The taking away of Offred’s real name seems to me to be just the icing on the cake of the numerous rights taken from the handmaids. For one, their free will is taken away from them, their children are taken from them, their individuality is taken from them and now we learn that their names are as well. This just merely adds to the growing pile of injustices stacked against the handmaids.
ReplyDeleteThe continued meetings to me signal a kind of intimacy inspired originally by the sex that was meant to be suppressed. Although Gilead does what it can to try to take all of the intimacy and attachment from the act of sex, I don’t think that they truly can prevent such feelings from developing during such a personal act. I’m not saying that the two should fall in love or anything, but any attachment they feel toward one another can easily be instinct as much as personal want