wingedbeast (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wingedbeast) wrote2018-02-25 06:10 pm
wingedbeast) wrote2018-02-25 06:10 pm
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The Handmaid's Tale Part 8: What's Mine
I've neglected to comment on one thread in this story. It's small, but it's thematically important. Offred's initial refusal to call the room she's boarded in hers. That's one bit of very small resistance that she can manage, as it's entirely internal. By not calling this room her own, not using the word "mine" in regards to it, she can deny the identity that makes that room her natural place.
But, the fact that it is so small is what makes this bit of resistance so difficult to keep up. It's a thought that you think without consciously choosing to use that word. So, in the previous chapter when she finds that the Commander was in that room, she's aware of the intrusion and aware that she referred to the room, entirely in her own mind, as "mine".
As a result, this chapter is all about "mine".
Offred compares and contrasts her situation to hotel rooms, when her then-not-yet-husband was still married and Offred (not going by that name at the time, of course) was "the other woman". There was a similar arrangement with the concept of "mine". It's "my" bed to lie on if she sees fit. It's "my" TV to turn on and off in the anxious wait. And, he's "my" lover even though, at the time, he's married to another woman.
Yet, there's a big contrast, an important one.
Offred explores her room in a methodical manner. The methodical nature of the exploration isn't out of interest in the room or the thought that she would find something of some sort of value. The purpose was to extend out the activity, the intellectual exercise of learning about this space that is "hers". She learns about hooks that are still in the walls, though low enough that you might think them incapable of being used to commit suicide. Offred, in an internal move that shows she's thought about the topic, realizes that their height isn't necessary.
One thing she finds is a reminder, a stark reminder, that this room wasn't always "mine". It was someone else's. That someone else wrote the words "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" in the floor in very small writing, such that it would have been etched with a fingernail or a pin, in a corner amidst a shadow.
What is "mine" wasn't always "mine". That can mean a number of things. Sometimes, like here, it can mean a connection with someone past. Someone who wrote a message for all who stayed there long enough to merit the time and boredom to, just to exercise the mind, examine a room in minute detail.
Offred tries to, as casually as possible, find something out about the previous inhabitant of that room. All she can get out is that there was, indeed, a previous inhabitant who didn't work out. Reasons are not given. "What you don't know won't hurt you."
The thing about that line is how wrong it is. The knowledge, itself, won't cause emotional distress. But, if you don't know there's a piano dangling above you by a tenuous thread that will snap in 3... 2... it can still hurt you. Of course, that only really matters to someone who respects your right to be your own being, to make choices and be responsible for yourself.
The contrast I mentioned above is that of choice. For Offred's condition, what's yours is yours and what's "mine"... isn't something she's allowed to decide.
But, the fact that it is so small is what makes this bit of resistance so difficult to keep up. It's a thought that you think without consciously choosing to use that word. So, in the previous chapter when she finds that the Commander was in that room, she's aware of the intrusion and aware that she referred to the room, entirely in her own mind, as "mine".
As a result, this chapter is all about "mine".
Offred compares and contrasts her situation to hotel rooms, when her then-not-yet-husband was still married and Offred (not going by that name at the time, of course) was "the other woman". There was a similar arrangement with the concept of "mine". It's "my" bed to lie on if she sees fit. It's "my" TV to turn on and off in the anxious wait. And, he's "my" lover even though, at the time, he's married to another woman.
Yet, there's a big contrast, an important one.
Offred explores her room in a methodical manner. The methodical nature of the exploration isn't out of interest in the room or the thought that she would find something of some sort of value. The purpose was to extend out the activity, the intellectual exercise of learning about this space that is "hers". She learns about hooks that are still in the walls, though low enough that you might think them incapable of being used to commit suicide. Offred, in an internal move that shows she's thought about the topic, realizes that their height isn't necessary.
One thing she finds is a reminder, a stark reminder, that this room wasn't always "mine". It was someone else's. That someone else wrote the words "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" in the floor in very small writing, such that it would have been etched with a fingernail or a pin, in a corner amidst a shadow.
What is "mine" wasn't always "mine". That can mean a number of things. Sometimes, like here, it can mean a connection with someone past. Someone who wrote a message for all who stayed there long enough to merit the time and boredom to, just to exercise the mind, examine a room in minute detail.
Offred tries to, as casually as possible, find something out about the previous inhabitant of that room. All she can get out is that there was, indeed, a previous inhabitant who didn't work out. Reasons are not given. "What you don't know won't hurt you."
The thing about that line is how wrong it is. The knowledge, itself, won't cause emotional distress. But, if you don't know there's a piano dangling above you by a tenuous thread that will snap in 3... 2... it can still hurt you. Of course, that only really matters to someone who respects your right to be your own being, to make choices and be responsible for yourself.
The contrast I mentioned above is that of choice. For Offred's condition, what's yours is yours and what's "mine"... isn't something she's allowed to decide.
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