“I take it… a knife.” Pg. 228
Throughout the book, Offred has
constantly refered to love – or, rather, the absence of it. She expresses that the commander “fucks” her,
as she denies to apply the word love to his actions. She refuses to apply the word in other areas
as well; she consistently refers to God – occasionally even in second person
narrative – but never presumes that there is any love present within the
concept of a deity. Here, she even
mentions the phrase ‘god is love’ and implies that love is fleeting when it
happens to exist at all. (Understanding
this, however, requires intuition regarding her application of god throughout
the story; she tells Ofglen that she doesn’t believe in the idea, giving the
evidence for this particular interpretation regarding love.)
In the passage at hand, she becomes
internally distraught over the idea that her daughter no longer remembers her,
furthering her idea that love is fleeing.
She clearly still loves her daughter, however, and this fact allows for
the discovery of a crucial piece of information regarding her views on
death. Offred spent the preceding
passages highlighting the struggles met to find love, and even explicitly
mentioned the idea that a person could love a person who does not
reciprocate. When she begins
contemplating the idea that her daughter does not remember her, she uses
language such as ‘shadow,’ ‘obliterated’ and even ‘dead’ before briefly
revisiting the fact that the handmaid’s are carefully watched to ensure that
they cannot kill themselves. In fact,
Offred tends to mention her inability to be truly obliterated whenever she
remembers her lack of love in this world.
All of these things point to the central theme of the story; those who
are deprived of love and human contact are driven to contemplate the value of
such a life.
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