Exuding sexuality, the prelude to the mating scene blends details and images into a sensual, pre-coital symphony: Nick twice nudges Offred with his foot, flowers become "the genital organs of plants," and a televised male choir punctuates the refrain of "The Little Brown Church in the Vale" with the bass counterpoint, "Come, come, come, come," an obvious reference to ejaculation. Truncated by a switch to televised video clips of religious warfare in Detroit, the news concludes with a benevolent, grandfatherly anchorman — a fictional version of Walter Cronkite — who convinces the audience that All Is Well in Gilead. After the appearance of the Commander, the sexual overlay intensifies with phallic images ("his extra, sensitive thumb, his tentacle, his delicate, stalked slug's eye, which extrudes, expands, winces, and shrivels back into himself") and copulative metaphors ("this journey into a darkness while he himself strains blindly forward"). Offred, who is simultaneously amused and compromised by the Commander's power, quips, "I've got my eye on you. One false move and I'm dead," a snippet of black humor that captures the potential for tragedy in their unproductive copulation.
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