The Handmaid’s Tale – Chapter 25
X - Soul Scrolls
Summary
In the morning, Cora finds Offred sleeping on the floor, and she screams and drops
the breakfast tray, shattering the dishes. Offred tells Cora she fainted. Cora covers
for her and tells Rita that she dropped the tray by accident.
Spring gives way to summer, and Offred continues to meet the Commander in his
office at night. They develop a system of signals so that Serena Joy will not realize
what is going on. If Nick is polishing the car hatless, or hat askew, the Commander
wants Offred to see him.
Sometimes she cannot go because Serena is knitting in the sitting room. Other times,
Serena goes out to visit other Wives when they are sick or feigning illness. The Wives
take turns being sick; Offred thinks it adds interest to their lives. Other women, the
Martha's and the Handmaids, cannot afford to be sick, because the sick and old
might be sent away to the Colonies.
During their meetings, the Commander does not make any further physical advances
toward Offred. They play Scrabble, and he allows her to look at an old copy
of Vogue. The women in the magazine remind her of princes or pirates. On the third
night, she asks the Commander for some hand lotion. He laughs when Offred tells
him the Handmaids use butter to keep their skin moist, which infuriates her. She
leaves the lotion in his office so that it will not be found in her room.
Key quotes and analysis
“snipping off the seed pods … the swelling genitalia of the flower”
o This shows Serena joy as a destructive power, attacking the flowers which
have fertility - something that she lacks.
o The tulips could also represent Offred, and Serena Joy is attacking her.
‘The difficulty is the Wife, as always. After dinner she goes to their bedroom, from
where she could conceivably hear me as a sneak along the Hall,”
o When Offred is attempting to sneak past Serna Joy it shows the reader that
Gilead hasn’t created a “women’s culture,” but instead has managed to
divide women.
o Offred and Serena Joy hate each other rather than the system that forced
them to become who they are.
“It was a magazine, or woman's magazine it looked like from the picture, a model
on glossy paper, head blown, neck scarfed, mouth lipsticked, the fall fashions. I
thought such magazines had all been destroyed, but here was one, left over, in a
commander's private study”
o The commander's first gift to Offred is a woman's magazine, a woman's guide
to femininity from a different era.
o Something the likes of the commander destroyed.
o This magazine represents the struggles that women had to face prior to
Gilead, as well as the fact that women had to conform to society's
expectations even before Gilead.
