The Handmaid's Tale deconstruction: Part 12 A Person Is Less Than a Thing

This chapter starts with a memory of the time before, wandering through art galleries that had, ubiquitous through the 19th century, paintings of harems and consorts and other bits of eroticism. That is where you would find the classic image of a woman leaning against a Roman-style couch, draped in something gauzy, with an arm over her forehead.

From her current perspective, Offred sees those as less erotic. They're not pictures of women being sexy. They're pictures of women being bored, because they're not currently in use and they're not given much of anything else to do.
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