umm, the work still is not done; the end is inconclusive

adam and eve, or adam's eve?
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If I’ve learned anything from studying nature—human nature, it’s that nature is entropic.  Thus creating a social order requires great coercive, regulatory, and hegemonic power.  Love, like nature, is entropic and exists in the margins of rules and restrictions.  So for the commander to say that “those years were just an anomaly, historically speaking”… “a fluke”—those years in which love trumped civil order—is a gross distortion of our entire human history.  In western religions, we have read that the woman, Eve, was created to serve God and her husband, but this narrative is relatively new—only 2000 years old.  “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (221).  This is why religious dogma is so dangerous.  The Handmaid’s Tale is not entirely historically out of context, though it does not document an actual community.  But the sexism, misogyny, and male supremacy that permeates every page stems from a Western religious culture of patriarchy—of order, and dominance, and masculinity.  In many pagan faiths, women were the central elements of society.  Mentions of the “eternal feminine” and “mother nature” remind us that, “historically speaking,” women played a critical role in carrying on the traditions and art of the culture. 

Two women, different realities.
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But this is not really the point.  The point is that not all women were equally devalued in this ridiculous anti-utopian society.  So sexism must have been laced with some other conception of intelligent women as dangerous, powerful, too powerful.  At one point, the clear distinction is made between power amongst Wives and the mothers: “they aren’t allowed to become wives, though; they’re considered, still, too dangerous for positions of such power.” (220)  So my point about invoking the entropic nature of nature, is that these mothers were forced into a society that couched itself on the historical high ground of male supremacy, but really, women were not indiscriminately viewed as inferior.  The Wives were more like partners; the mothers, like slaves.  Even in the photo, on the cover of the movie, you see a difference in power between the "mother" and the "wife."  For one, the mother is the object and subject of focus.  She looks vulnerable, naked, frightened, powerless, and looks as though she cannot confront her audience directly.  The wife is situated in the same position as the commander behind Offred.  She is fully clothed, serious, powerful-looking, and direct.  These are some distinctions within the overall oppressed community of women that persist today.  Not all women are equally oppressed; Black, Latina, Asian-A, and white women experience different levels of power in their own communities and in the larger society.

Again, on the them of nature...the new mothers are described as having natural or even supernatural qualities: “there’s an odor of witch about them, something mysterious and exotic…” (220).

It’s odd that later, in chapter 37 when the commander takes Offred “out,” that he tells her to “just act natural.”  (235)  Ironically, he had been preaching that the natural state of social affairs is to suppress female individuality, sexuality, intellect, identity.  So the idea that keeps bothering me is this notion of such a social order as being natural—or unnatural.  We all would argue, I’m sure, that this is unnatural.  And well put, Ookami, “It's not "nature's way" to be a man-slut.”  But why then, is there such an extensive dialogue about history and nature in the context of gender oppression—as if somehow either justifies the other?  The commander says of the party: “it’s like walking into the past” (235). 


I appreciate that Dachshund and Ookami talked about the "end."  How inconclusive and overall depressing it was.  Chapter 41 opens with "I wish this story were different." (267)  It depressed me to continue reading this line: "I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia.  I wish it have more shape.  I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one's life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow." (267)  I bet the hellish legacy of slavery would read the same way had it been written by slaves themselves.  I can only imagine being in want of freedom, love, raindrops, snow, beauty, everything....what a crime against humanity.

"I tell, therefore you are." (268)  This just hit me. This is why I believe so strongly that I want to fight racial, economic, social oppression.  Because someone has begun this struggle--they have told the story--and now, "I am."