The Handmaid's Tale

At night, back in her room, Offred watches Nick emerge “from the spill of darkness under the willow” (201). They “look at each other,” and Offred thinks, “I have no rose to toss, he has no lute. But it’s the same kind of hunger” (201). However, she knows that it is a hunger “I can’t indulge” (201), and she draws the curtain.

Offred recalls the night before she and Luke tried to flee with their daughter. They could not leave the cat behind because it would “mew at the door” (202) and people would know that they had run away. Luke volunteers to “take care of it,” and “because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill” (202). She thinks that “before you kill […] you have to make an it […] So that’s how they do it” (202).

She also remembers praying at the Centre for “emptiness, so we would be worthy to be filled: with grace, with love, with self-denial, semen and babies” (204). She remembers praying, “Oh God, obliterate me. Make me fruitful” (204). Now, in her room, she prays, “My God. Who Art in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within.