The evolution of Serena Joy

From the beginning of the book, we witness the disdain that the Wives, Aunts, and Marthas have toward the Handmaids, with each having their own reason, varying from the sense of threat to the relationship the wives have with their husbands, to the sense of insecurity felt by the Marthas when considering the life that they could have endured under different circumstanced. Serena Joy had marked her territory of her husband to Offred from the moment that they had met, and we later discover the consequence that comes with stepping outside the boundaries of the duty a handmaid serves when we learned that the previous handmaid had commit suicide after Serena Joy discovered her late-night meetings with the Commander. The poor attitude that Serena Joy has toward the presence of a handmaid in her home and her relationship resolves further with the discovery that she was aware of existence of Offred’s daughter and her whereabouts but did not feel compelled to share this information with Offred until she found that she had something to gain from her, although, this is the pivotal moment in which we are able to see Serena Joy in the light of a female being oppressed by the society she helped to create.


In the moment that Serena Joy suggests that Offred sleep with Nick and shows her kindness by giving her a cigarette and showing her a photo of her daughter, we see the desperation that Serena Joy feels to not only become a mother, as her duty requires, but also her desperation to rid her relationship of the handmaids that she so resents. “’I won’t go outside with you’ she whispers. Odd, to hear her whispering, as if she is one of us (Atwood 260).” Like Offred’s analysis of Serena Joy’s use of whisper, we cannot dismiss the newfound similarity that Serena Joy shares with the lower tiers of women: a willingness to defy the order of the Gilead in order to fulfill a need or desire otherwise denied. It is this scene in the story in which Serena Joy assists Offred in committing a crime, and thereby commits a crime herself, that we are forced to recognize that the oppression of women extends beyond the lower tier of women to encompass all; The patriarchy touched the lives of each group of women, no woman being spared.

Comments

  1. Raquel GorresNovember 20, 2017 at 7:38 PM

    I love the contrast that you bring up about the actions of Serent Joy when you state that the previous handmaid committed suicide after Serena Joy found out about her and the commander, and then flipping it and talking about how she was being nice to Offred by giving her the cigarette and the photo of her daughter. I am confused though how Serena Joy was all for Offred sleeping with Nick to do “whatever it takes” to have a child, while then turning around and basically calling Offred a whore for meeting with the Commander when up until the night at the ‘club’, Offred and the Commander never slept together.

    Also if serena Joy had wanted a child so badly, why did she kick Offred out of her room immediately after the ceremonies, even though the handmaids were supposed to stay laying on the bed for 10 minutes afterwards to provide a better chance at conception? Offred talks about how Serena Joy kicked her out of the room and that she could feel the “juice of the commander” (pg 95) run down her leg. If serena Joy really wanted a child that bad, you’d think she would do everything he could to make sure Offred would get pregnant.

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  2. UnknownNovember 27, 2017 at 9:06 AM

    I think you give Serena a lot of credit that is overlooked, we as readers don't like her cause she just makes our protagonist's life even harder. But your quote 'I won't go outside with you' justifies her as another woman being oppressed by the Gilead.

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