Poem Analysis: Offred

1.“The room smells of lemon oil, heavy cloth, fading daffodils, the leftover smells of cooking that have made their way from the kitchen or the dining room, and of Serena Joy’s perfume: Lily of the Valley. Perfume is a luxury, she must have some private source. I breathe in I appreciate it. It’s the scent of pre-pubescent girls, of the gift young children used to give to give their mothers, for Mother’s Day; the smell of white cotton socks and white cotton petticoats, of dusting powder, of the innocence female flesh not yet given over to hairiness and blood. It makes me feel slightly ill, as if I’m in a closed car on a hot muggy day with an older woman wearing too much face powder. This is what the sitting room is like, despite elegance”(80).

Context: Offred is in the Commander and Serena Joy’s room, she noticed the smell of

Offred is looking out her window when she notices Nick. Atwood uses a simile to compare the day changing to night to stones pressing down on her. When it is night she no longer has to interact with anyone else but that does not mean she still does not feel the pressures from her handmaid duties. The use of the simile is effective because it reminds us that another day has passed without a sign of Offred being pregnant. She is feeling hopeless because she is running out of time. Atwood uses diction when she writes “long-sleeved even in summer, to keep us from the temptations of our own flesh, to keep us from hugging ourselves, bare-armed”. Atwood chooses to use the words “temptation of our flesh” because it shows that the handmaids are seen as sexual objects even when they are alone, they do not have control over their body. If this was written in another way such as “to keep us away from our bare skin” it would not have the same impact because it does not explain why it is forbidden for them to wear revealing