The Handmaids Tale

     The part of the book I was confused about the most was why the commander would  ask Offred to come to his office to play scrabble and then ask her to kiss him like she means it. At first I thought scrabble was just a word he was using for sex but then they were actually playing scrabble until he said to her kiss me and do it like you mean it. When she was told to come to the commander’s office she thought she was in trouble and felt like a kid in school being sent to the principal’s office. Once she was inside the office she was worried Serena Joy would find out because it is illegal for her to be there and if she was found there she would be classified as an unwoman and sent away. Once in the office she notices it is normal like every other office she has been in before she became a handmaid. 

     In this book I feel it is not right the way the women are treated and color coded. It is definitely not right how the commander has sex with the handmaid while the wife sits behind her and pretends like he is having sex with her and there’s no person between them.  Just like when the handmaid is having the baby they do almost the same thing and the jump into bed and get handed the baby like they just gave birth to the baby. That is not how it happens in the real world and this is probably not how it happened in the olden days either. The way they do things in this book is so confusing and not right. The handmaids should not have to be sent away after they are done breastfeeding they should be able to stay there and watch the child grow up but just not say that she is the child’s real mother because then she will be sent away if she does that.

     “I’d like you to play a game of scrabble with me, he says.”  She thinks to herself so that’s what happens in the forbidden room.  They play two games and then after they are done he reveals his true intent  and says that he wants her to kiss him which  confuses her and then she starts thinking how she could take the toilet apart on bath night and hides the lever thing in her sleeve to stab him when he makes that request again because there is not only just one request like that. She brings herself back to reality and says okay and kisses him. He then pulls away and says not like that kiss me like you mean it.  In the real world none of these things would really be happening. Girls nowadays would not be used as incubators for babies against their will, girls nowadays would not be sneaking around playing board games and make out sessions and girls nowadays would not be forced to have sex with married men to make babies for their wives to raise like their own. The world in this book is so unreal it’s very confusing.

            In the book the handmaidens could be killed or called unwoman if they are caught making out with the commanders in their study verses if women are caught making out with someone else’s man the other girl would just kick that girls butt. Also nowadays women are not forced to have someone else’s baby they are asked and paid some money to be a surrogate for them as to where in the book they are forced to have sex with the commander while his wife sits behind her and acts like she is doing the deed with her husband and then once she is given a baby they send the handmaiden away like she is trash and they no longer need her now that they have her baby.