This segment, a complex and interwoven view of womanhood, juxtaposes Gileadean women in variations of power and powerlessness:
· The sadistic, manipulative, khaki-clad Aunt Lydia and her female pupils, whom she vows to “lick ... into shape,” a common idiom that takes on lesbian overtones.
· On the screen of the classroom flickers a training film of an assisted birth, where a woman, “like a broken robot,” is contorted and manipulated into giving birth.
· At the home of Ofwarren’s family, another paradigm of the female ghetto appears in the social stratification of Wives and Handmaids, a separation of the privileged from the enslaved. Janine, now known as Ofwarren, whimpers “suckily” for a cookie. The indulgent Wife treats her to a sweet, then dismisses her. In private, the Wives snipe, “Little whores, all of them.” By the end of the birthing scene, Ofwarren, her temporary prestige cast aside like a discarded afterbirth, retreats into the sisterhood of Handmaids.
Atwood’s examination of not only female enslavement but also the complex woman-against-woman undercurrent of innuendo, mistrust exploitation, and betrayal delves into a dark area of feminism—the overlay of treachery that impedes women from trusting their own kind. During this era of repression and coercion, Offred needs spiritual uplift. Out of her dealing with Marthas, Aunt Lydia, Wives, and other Handmaids, the most hopeful relationships come from Moira, who has vanished from Offred’s milieu, and Cora, the simple serving woman who manages an occasional smile and perpetual hope for Offred’s conception of a child. As an indicator of Cora’s consistent, but peripheral encouragement, Atwood has named her for the Latin cor, meaning heart.
The counterpoint of Gilead’s rigid female strata pulsates at different pitches and rhythms—Wives circling the buffet table, sipping wine, gathering in the sitting room. The Wives’ mock birthing scene depicts the Commander’s Wife in a virginal white gown offset by a spray of gray hair. The coterie of Wives massage her abdomen as though the long-dead reproductive organs were viable, imminently capable of pushing out a living child. In the master bedroom, a similar scene counters with the real push, pant, and relax motif of a woman in the throes of delivery. The local Handmaids, about twenty-five or thirty of them, assist Aunt Elizabeth, the birth master, by running errands and encouraging Ofwarren.
In Offred’s mind, another set of female contrasts separates her from her mother, an undaunted voice from the past who lived her life as a liberated woman and took part in public demonstrations for women’s rights. During cloaked exchanges at Offred and Luke’s residence, Offred’s mother referred to Luke as a chauvinist “piglet” and to Offred as a “backlash.” Atwood’s warning highlights the danger of a postfeminist generation of women who take no active interest in women’s rights and suffer the consequences when it’s too late to stop anti-feminist forces. After the government takeover, Offred—resentful of old arguments with her mother, who expected validation of her philosophies—wishes she could have her mother back again. In a sardonic invocation of her mother’s spirit, Offred asks, “Can you hear me? You wanted a women’s culture. Well, now there is one.”
