Against the large screen on which Offred plays out her servitude are the lesser "Of's" — the first Ofglen, who maintains the dogma of Handmaidenhood during visits to the cemetery and past the Wall; the subsequent Ofglen, who whispers that her predecessor hanged herself; and Ofcharles, the nameless, story-less victim of a Salvaging. A strong "Of" is "Ofwarren," who retains enough of her former personality to be called Janine through most of the novel. A cloyingly complicitous trainee at Red Center, Janine annoys even the iron-spined Aunt Lydia with her ecstasy and cathartic reliving of gang rape. However, Atwood rescues Janine from the stereotype of the sycophant by revealing an early scene of mental derangement, followed by a head-forward, contraction-wracked birthing, and tears for little Angela, the handicapped infant whom she can never claim as her own. In the end, Janine/Ofwarren becomes Ofsomebody else, but her mind ceases to observe rationality. Like a ubiquitous clerk or receptionist, she wishes her Handmaiden sisters to "have a nice day." To Offred, Janine, now "in free fall," is unsalvageable.
Clustered about Janine and the other breeders is the pecking order of Gilead womanhood: Wives, Daughters, Aunts, Marthas, Econowives, and Unwomen. Serena Joy is a composite drawn from Mirabel Morgan, Tammy Faye Baker, and Phyllis Schlafly; she is the true turncoat against women and must live with her futile hope for a return to traditional womanhood. Her own television career curtailed, Serena now suffers the pain of arthritis as her joints, like her compassion, freeze up. Her hands, endlessly turning out geometrically cloned hominids on knitted wool scarves, reach for the effusive flowers that mock her sterility. Like Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello, Serena associates herself with the willow, a gentle symbol of endless grief. Like Niobe, the weeping non-mother of Greek mythology, Serena has no choice but to support Offred in concubinage to the Commander and surreptitious couplings with Nick if the family is ever to produce a child.
