Being a woman has never been easy over the whole course of civilization. Although there have been improvements made, the prejudice against women has never stopped. In the book, The Handmaid’s Tale, author Margaret Atwood describes what being a woman in Gilead, before their freedom got taken away, looked like for the female characters in the book.

“I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: Don’t open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police. Make him slide his ID under the door. Don’t stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble. Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don’t turn to look. Don’t go into a laundromat, by yourself, at night,” (Pg. 24).

Offred is expressing the things she learned growing up in Gilead because of her gender. What’s surprising to me is how well it connects with what women learn today about their personal safety. I became really independent as I grew older and that required me to go to a lot of places by myself. Some would say I didn’t look my age because I was on the taller side and had been more developed than those in my age range. The way I looked didn’t really phase me when I was traveling by myself because I was just a kid. But when I started high school, things changed drastically for me. Before I never experienced the dangers of being a woman in public because I was always in areas where I wouldn’t encounter things like that or I was with my family. My highschool was in a very different location than what I was used to. Even though I have lived in the city for most of my life, I was always on the outskirts rather than directly in the city. And whenever I was in the city, I would have an adult by my side. When starting highschool, this all changed because I started to go to the city by myself to go to school and other extracurriculars. Of course I was told to be safe and let my mom know where I am at all times but I didn’t really realize what she meant by “be safe,” until the school year started to go by and traveling in and out of center city was the norm for me.

I remember walking to the train station and the sidewalk I was walking on happened to be right next to a very busy street. As I was walking, a car slowed down past me, honked and whistled at me, and then drove off. I was confused at first but then realized it was a grown man in that car trying to cat-call me knowing I looked like a kid coming from school. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable and unsafe because I didn’t know if this was gonna be the last time something like this happened. This situation compares to the “rules” Offred describes in quote because even though I am in a completely different timeframe/reality from her, I still have to abide by the same rules she describes. When you get older and start to experience more unhinged things that men do towards you, you know deep down how to react to it and how to prevent it from happening. Experience teaches you lessons. I know now not to walk next to a busy street by myself or respond to strangers (majority men) who have bad intentions with me. My mom never told me these rules but I found them out just by being a woman.

Offred also mentions the change that the women in the book now encounter because of the government’s decisions. Now that all of them are handmaids, their reality has become completely different.

“Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles. There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it,” (Pg. 24)

She’s describing what life is like now that women are under the control of the government and how they only get freedom “from” them to do certain things. This caused more safety for the handmaids but made them seem like objects. As you get deeper into the book, Offred goes with her commander to a club and although she is technically protected, the men still look at her like she is something to judge from head to toe.

“The Commander does the talking for me, to this man and to the others who follow him. He doesn’t say much about me, he doesn’t need to. He says I’m new, they look at me and dismiss me and confer together about other things,” (Pg. 236).

The way they reacted to her makes me think what would happen if I was treated the same way in my reality. Would I be shut down just like that? Would I look weird? Although women are not represented as objects nowadays, some people still see us as one, which proves the point Margaret Atwood is trying to make. Gilead is not that much different than society today when you think about how women are treated. It’s not as obvious in our reality but it does still happen, creating windows between the book and real life.

My artwork is about how Offred thought of how winter was not dangerous yet she saw some evil rooted deep within Serena Joy’s garden yet nobody had truly noticed it before.

Not only that but it supposedly shows how their secrets buried deep within the garden that had been long kept there and now needed to be brought into the light as if those secrets had a voice that needed to be heard.

My artwork also in a way shows how the voices of those secrets have been kept hidden for so many years that they had begun to become louder and louder as if they were grim grinning ghosts who had come out to socialize therefore causing offred to wonder if the emptiness that she spoke to when she told her story were there truly voices starting to hear her or was she just losing her inner self after being there for so long without any true reality of her own.

While reading The Handmaid’s Tale, Moira was one of the characters that stuck out to me due to her rebellious nature and antics. She reminded me of one of my older cousins who is and was one of the most rebellious people I know. He always did the opposite of whatever anyone told him and was overprotective of himself. To me, my cousin growing up was my idol. I looked up to him heavily as he was like an older brother to me. I watched him and almost studied him just trying to understand him and the way he moved, his outlook on the world.

Chapter 22 of the book describes Moira’s plans to escape and it reminded me of when my cousin and I had a conversation about how he wanted change for himself and wanted to leave Philadelphia. He was tired of the terrible feeling that was attached to him by being in Philly. He was filled with so much emotion and passion for his desire to leave as Moira seems to have had through Offred’s perspective. From Offred’s viewpoint, we see that Moira has a plan of escape by overflowing the toilet and killing Aunt Elizabeth, swapping clothes, and walking right out of the center. As stated in chapter 22 on pages 130-132 her plan to escape by overflowing the toilet and then bringing Aunt Elizabeth to “help” fix the toilet Moira stabs Aunt Elizabeth in the ribs then tells her “I’ll stick it all the way in, I know where, I’ll puncture your lung.” From my perspective, my cousin was killing his emotional ties to Philadelphia and taking this leap of faith of moving out of state and didn’t look back. For about a year we didn’t speak to each other as I reminded him of home. The idea of home was too painful for him as everything he knew and loved was Philadelphia. Philadelphia was his home but so much baggage came with it and he was tired of the pain and suffering that was tied to him living here.

As I see from my perspective after reading what Offred has expressed throughout what I have read about Moira, it seems as if Moira holds in a lot of pain and deals with her pain through humor. Growing up I noticed my cousin would joke a lot and tried to make everyone else laugh with him I was too young to understand, but as I got older I finally understood why he would do that. Even though as I got older he would tell me more about his life, his pain, his suffering I couldn’t understand why he did the stuff he did till I could understand his emotional state. I came to the realization when reading the story when Moira was talking about the idea of date rape and how she was quick to laugh as if off like it was just a regular joke to make from that point, after deliberating with my classmates I could conclude that it probably happened to Moira. From the connection, I could make between Moira and my cousin just like Offred, I noticed how rebellion has changed the course of life. My cousin’s rebellious behavior caused our relationship to get put on hold for some time as the time we spent together was limited my parents thought his behavior was going to rub off on me as I started to follow in his footsteps. My relationship with my parents changed because of the effects of my and my cousin’s relationship as they kept me away from the stuff he was doing. From secretly hanging out with him when my parents weren’t home to me meeting up with him out in the city. We built such a tight bond that when he left I changed and at a point, I was so shocked that it felt numb like it seemed like Offred feels at the beginning of the book. When we didn’t talk it felt like he almost didn’t exist because he didn’t talk to anyone so no one got an update on him. His leaving was tough but I know it was for the best just like it was for Moira. They both gained their idea of freedom, Moira’s escape from Gilead, and my cousin’s escape from what he saw as his hellscape. Offred and I could both see that escape can be the only way to find pure happiness and change but also can spark something inside someone else.

In chapter 2 of the Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood, the main character Offred is having a moment of internal monologue while adjusting her room in the home of her new host family. One quote, among many, that I found very interesting was, “ Waste not want. I am not being wasted, why do I want?” I found this idea to be very philosophical. Reading it generated a lot of questions in my mind; what does it mean to not be wasted as a humanist being and not a physical object? What is the basis of a want? I wanted to examine these questions in two different contexts: Offred’s life and mine. For Offred to be “not wasted” is to be a Handmaid or a surrogate. Even though it is stated to her that this is a necessary and selfless position, it is not what wants. The indoctrination that she went through in the Red Center to prepare her for the role may have changed her circumstances greatly and made that her only option for “use” but it did not suddenly turn it into something that she wanted. This lack of option in how she is not wasted more than likely left her feeling incomplete. Coupling this lack of option or choice with the things that Gilead and the new government has taken from her, her partner, her child, her education, her free will, which are all things that she wants makes her unfulfilled. Being told what you should be feeling by no means makes you feel it. She spends everyday doing something that she has no desire for and no choice so naturally she wants. Something different or something more. In my life I think my use is the work I do inside of school and out. I think where I start to differ from Offred is that my “not waste” is care. I come from a very stable family with good incomes, I have never truly needed for anything. I am not without necessities and I am not without love. I have had so many amazing opportunities throughout as a result of my family not wasting me, they see me as something that describes attention and care. “I am not wasted, why do I want”; I know that I am lucky to have received everything I have in my life but I still find myself wanting more. I feel envious of the lives I see other people lead. Social media definitely plays a big part of this feeling; all the things I want magnified in other people even though I am aware of the fact that people hardly live the lives we see on screen but I feel it in my real life as well. My friends being invited to parties I hadn’t even heard of, having skills that I can’t seem to grasp no matter how hard I try, having siblings, being in relationships. I know I don‘t need any of these things, that I should be ok with what I have seeing as so many people don’t have access to the same things as me but I want, even though I know I am in no way being wasted. I often have an internal moral battle with myself over this. But then I think, do I want something more or do I want something different? To compare my life with Offred’s seems almost disrespectful in a way but, putting these to ideas side by side and asking that question, “ I am not being wasted, why do I want?”, makes some things a bit clearer on both sides. I believe that Offred’s wants and mine oversect a bit, I don’t think we want something more, we want something different. For Offred that would be to live in a different version of her world where she has the people she cares about, where she can read freely, where she has control over her own body. For myself, I would want to live in a different county, have different interests, and have a different way of walking through life. I would want to be a black Italian woman who rides a Vespa and works in her father’s bookshop. This is something that I want but I will never have and that’s okay. I am by no means wasted and for that I am incredibly grateful, but I am still allowed to want. In chapter 2 of the Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood, the main character Offred is having a moment of internal monologue while adjusting her room in the home of her new host family. One quote, among many, that I found very interesting was, “ Waste not want. I am not being wasted, why do I want?” I found this idea to be very philosophical. Reading it generated a lot of questions in my mind; what does it mean to not be wasted as a humanist being and not a physical object? What is the basis of a want? I wanted to examine these questions in two different contexts: Offred’s life and mine. For Offred to be “not wasted” is to be a Handmaid or a surrogate. Even though it is stated to her that this is a necessary and selfless position, it is not what wants. The indoctrination that she went through in the Red Center to prepare her for the role may have changed her circumstances greatly and made that her only option for “use” but it did not suddenly turn it into something that she wanted. This lack of option in how she is not wasted more than likely left her feeling incomplete. Coupling this lack of option or choice with the things that Gilead and the new government has taken from her, her partner, her child, her education, her free will, which are all things that she wants makes her unfulfilled. Being told what you should be feeling by no means makes you feel it. She spends everyday doing something that she has no desire for and no choice so naturally she wants. Something different or something more. In my life I think my use is the work I do inside of school and out. I think where I start to differ from Offred is that my “not waste” is care. I come from a very stable family with good incomes, I have never truly needed for anything. I am not without necessities and I am not without love. I have had so many amazing opportunities throughout as a result of my family not wasting me, they see me as something that describes attention and care. “I am not wasted, why do I want”; I know that I am lucky to have received everything I have in my life but I still find myself wanting more. I feel envious of the lives I see other people lead. Social media definitely plays a big part of this feeling; all the things I want magnified in other people even though I am aware of the fact that people hardly live the lives we see on screen but I feel it in my real life as well. My friends being invited to parties I hadn’t even heard of, having skills that I can’t seem to grasp no matter how hard I try, having siblings, being in relationships. I know I don‘t need any of these things, that I should be ok with what I have seeing as so many people don’t have access to the same things as me but I want, even though I know I am in no way being wasted. I often have an internal moral battle with myself over this. But then I think, do I want something more or do I want something different? To compare my life with Offred’s seems almost disrespectful in a way but, putting these to ideas side by side and asking that question, “ I am not being wasted, why do I want?”, makes some things a bit clearer on both sides. I believe that Offred’s wants and mine oversect a bit, I don’t think we want something more, we want something different. For Offred that would be to live in a different version of her world where she has the people she cares about, where she can read freely, where she has control over her own body. For myself, I would want to live in a different county, have different interests, and have a different way of walking through life. I would want to be a black Italian woman who rides a Vespa and works in her father’s bookshop. This is something that I want but I will never have and that’s okay. I am by no means wasted and for that I am incredibly grateful, but I am still allowed to want.

In chapter 17, Offred is sneaking downstairs because of her need to take something to feel noticed, she then encounters Nick who sweeps her off her feet and the two almost do something that cost them their lives.

As I read “I think about the hanged men, hooked on the stairs, before I dissolve entirely.” on page 99, This part resonates with me because the feeling of doing something you know was wrong puts a certain fear in you. Like Offred, I’ve had moments where I was too focused on what I wanted at that moment to see what could’ve happened due to my actions. Over the past few chapters, I’ve noticed that the limitations of this society are mostly based on the Bible and Christianity pushed to the extreme. Ideals are twisted into something that could be manipulated by the higher-ups in Gilead, not allowing women to express who they truly are. I have had moments where I had to hold back certain parts of myself for fear of what others might think or judge me. Moments like Offred where I just wanted to be who I was, ignoring any consequences, wanting the feeling to express ourselves freely.

What connected me to Offred was the quote “It’s so good, to be touched by someone, to be felt so greedily, to feel so greedy. Luke, you’d know, you’d understand. It’s you here, in another body. Bullshit.” On page 99. There have been so many times that justification plagued my mind, especially when I did something I knew I shouldn’t have done. The act of lying to one’s self just to come up with a reason is so real to me, especially since we know how important Luke is to Offred. The father of her child and her husband, Luke occupies her thoughts when she thinks to herself it’s very apparent that she loves him. For her to turn to another man and almost give in to her wants, I think of my mother. The way I’d blatantly disobey her just to fill my own heart, whether that be doing something behind her back, lying to her, or anything else. I knew I could’ve just not done those things but chose to anyway. I always loved her no matter the situation but in those instances, I was focused on how I was feeling at that very moment. Now that I can see her anymore I empathize with Offred because she doesn’t know the state that Luke is in. I feel as if we both took the ones we loved for granted and now have to live with the fact that times have changed and we have to adapt to these changes.

The want for attention makes me think of the quote “I want Luke here so badly. I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not: I want to be more than valued.” Written on page 98, I felt as if this section was about the need to feel needed or wanted, we as humans are social creatures who desire to be with people who will acknowledge us and accept us. I often feel that it is something you want to be known for, but at the same time too embarrassing to say. Offred has been denied any form of affection and reassurance and has been put in a state of loneliness that has been piled up negatively for however long these laws have been made. I have had times where I feel intense loneliness and in those times I’ve felt very desperate to have any kind of connection. I have an amazing support system and it would be a nightmare for them to be taken away from me. In that scenario, I can see why the rules would seem so small in her interaction with Nick. If that fulfillment could be satisfied for even a moment it would all be worth it.

Few people can say they understand what Offred has been through since her situations were pushed to the extreme for the narrative. However, throughout all of her experiences, there is always something we could connect to, Especially when it comes to the interactions with other people and our basic human needs. To be accepted for who we are is all anyone ever wants and it’s that want that could get us into trouble, Humans are easy to take apart if you know what to look for. We all want to feel Desired.

The section that caught my attention instantly during my reading was on page seventy-four of The Handmaid’s Tale, where Luke, Offred, and her daughter are making an attempt to escape to the border. Throughout the reading, we hadn’t known what had happened with her daughter and Luke, and while we did have some snippets here of the two we did not have much information in regards to who they were. This was the first time that we had figured out what had happened to the three, and created a lot of foreshadowing for the future. ¨Luke is there, behind me, I turn to see him. He won’t look at me, he looks down at the floor, where the cat is rubbing itself against his legs, mewing and mewing plaintively. It wants food, but how can there be any food with the apartment so empty? Luke, I say. He doesn’t answer. Maybe he doesn’t hear me. It occurs to me that he may not be alive.¨ The first thing that came to mind was if Luke was really dead? Throughout the story we can understand that the handmaid has a pretty negative tone throughout, essentially expecting the worst, we understand this in different scenes like the one where she is shown a photo of her daughter and she instantly assumes she is dead, but how can Luke be dead? Is she remembering things wrong? Usually people do not die standing up right, in fact it’s probably impossible, but in this scene the reader can understand that he is standing up right, or probably is. Then in the next page, at the bottom it says, ¨The bell wakes me; and then Cora, knocking at my door.¨ Now this is really confusing, was the ¨memory¨ from before really a memory? Is that what happened to Luke? I feel like including that it was a dream rather than a memory had made me initially question the two. Often, when we get snippets of the Handmaid´s life in the former world, it’s usually in bed where she claims she’s either imagining, but is she imagining? Or is she just dreaming? I think something interesting about this story is that it’s hard to distinguish between the two and what’s really happening. Some parts may invalidate others, while others may validate them. This makes me still question what happened to Luke and her daughter, were they really caught crossing the border or was there more to it? Similarly, later on page 85 the Handmaid gives another story regarding her crossing of the border. ¨When we get to the border, we´re just going over on a day trip; the fake visas are for a day. Before that I´ll give her a sleeping pill so she´ll be asleep when we cross. That way she won’t betray us.¨ One thing that initially shocked me is that this is a completely different story from the one before, Luke is in the car not in the apartment with the cat. She is taking her car rather than swimming, why? IS this also a dream? I think the narrator makes it hard to distinguish to make the reader more immersed with the handmaid. THroughout the story, the Handmaid has a difficult time distinguishing between her imagination, her dreams, and what has actually happened. In which she would often make clear to the reader that she is remembering wrong as if she’s the one reading. In this case, the reader cannot understand once more which one is the real story. This also reminded me of the story we read at the beginning of the class, ¨Beginning¨ by Marget Atwood, where she would once again make different versions of the same story, so it makes me question how much of the Handmaid’s stories and memory of the past is honest rather than imagine and hoping that one or another happened, or maybe they are all the same story. Its really conflicting and I think the conflict that the author causes by giving us different stories to fill in the same gaps is what makes this story really immersive. We´re practically in the Handmaid´s mind in the sense that we cannot distinguish between fake and real, the same way that the Handmaid cannot. Another good example of this is the scene in which Moira escapes, she has no way to prove that this really occurred. She just happened to hear it through other people. In fact, for all she knows Moira can be already dead, but the Handmaid is hopeful for the ones she loves.

The first song I want to introduce is called “Labor” by Paris Paloma and the lyrics consist of a list of things that the woman is expected to do by a man. The lyrics I want to highlight in this song are, “Somebody I thought was my savior, you make me do too much labor.” It connects to the text because in the story the women were expected to work and complete manual labor until they got pregnant, which is why they glorified it so much. We first see this glorification of pregnancy when Offred’s doctor tells her “I could help you,” referring to impregnation and the second time we see it is when Offred says “She’s a flag on a hilltop, showing us what can still be done: we too can be saved” referring to the pregnant woman she saw in the market. The next song I want to bring up is Satisfied from a play called Hamilton. I find this song to be relatable to the text through its references to the standardized expectations of the women living in the time period where Hamilton takes place,”I’m a girl in a world in which My only job is to marry rich”. I chose this quote because it reinforces a societal gender norm that men have to have money and women have to marry rich. We see an example of this same societal gender norm in the book where the “econowives” are mentioned and they are described as “red and blue and green and cheap and skimpy, that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they’re called.” Both of these quotes serve the purpose of reinforcing a negative connotation that men need to have money and that women have to marry rich. The third song i chose to go on this playlist is “The Schylar Sisters” its another song from the play “Hamilton” and its important to the text because another one of the societal norms. The quote I chose from this text is “ your perfume smells like your daddys got money”. I chose this quote because it derives from another societal gender norm that was popular at the time, which is for the women in the house to depend on the men and their wages, as well as not to pursue education or a job. We see this in our story when Offred says, “Psychology, English, economics. We studied things like that, then in reference to how they used to be allowed to get education but the government took that away from them to make the men more valuable and the women more dependent on them. The next song I want to talk about in relativity to the book we’re reading is “That would be enough” from Hamilton and I find this quote important because it’s referencing the negative connotation and societal norms mentioned earlier but it comes from a man’s perspective. Hamilton gives us insight and perspective on his struggles and perspective of his responsibilities in a woman’s life when he asks, “Will you relish being a poor man’s wife”. This quote indicates a certain pressure surrounding Hamilton’s work life, his family life, and his ability to balance both while also being able to provide for his family. Another reason I find this quote to be intriguing is because in the book everything is written from a first person perspective so we never get a true comprehension of how the men in the book fell. Offred has experienced many things that impacted the way she perceives herself and wears down on her self esteem. I think this song oblivion does a great job of helping the audience understand Offred through the lyrics “Oblivion, Wish I would go back, I could go back to no one, Oblivion, Wish I would go back, I could go back to nothing” I think these few lines of the song have a major impact on the way she used to live and the norms she wishes were still normal. Wishing she could go back to “no one” could mean that she wished she could go back to being no one because she has societal pressures upon her from her role as a handmaid but it could also mean she wishes she could go back to “no one”, “no one” being an absence of the people she needs to validate and earn the approval of in her current situation, she wishes she could go back to not needing to impress anyone, she wishes to escape the judgment. .

This drawing is a representation of a scene in “The Handmaid’s Tale” when the main character Offered is experiencing one of her memories while drifting away in her bed. She reminisces about the moments she would spend with her mom, specifically this moment illustrated is about a time when Offered and her mother were walking around in the park. She was handed a magazine with a naked woman on the cover. When she was young and innocent, she believed the naked woman was nothing, it was “Tarzan on the TV” but now as she reflects on her past experience, she now realizes that the woman hanging from the chains was more than a TV character.

Little Offred (pictured on the left) is casually reading the magazine she was just handed. She was positive about it, she thought it was a pretty woman swinging from vines. She had an innocent viewpoint on the image. Due to her being through all of the things she has been through in the last few years, such as creating life and participating in the acts to do so, older Offred (pictured on the right) no longer has an innocent viewpoint of the image. She now realizes that the image is sexual material, and is not meant for the eyes of children. Her first thought the moment she saw the image wasn’t to depict the nude woman, it was to use her imagination and creativity to envision something that she thought the image meant. Now that she has endless nights, lost in her thoughts, she now realizes the true meanings behind things.

“I looked at it with interest, it didn’t frighten me.”(38) Atwood added that quote to show to the readers that now, looking back if she had the knowledge that she has now, she would’ve questioned the image more and maybe been more frightened. She now realizes a naked woman hanging from a chain is not normal at all, and we realize through reading this book that nothing in the world of Gilead is normal.

Overall, I drew this image to depict the differences between younger Offred and current day Offred. It expresses the differences between how an innocent child might view something versus how a grown adult would view an image. This specific scene is so significant to the story’s structure because it helps the reader understand how different life experiences can impact your memories. There are many scenes in which Offred comes to realization with her past self, but this scene in particular not only represents Offred realizing her mistakes, but it is also a visualization of how innocence will start to go away as we age, and it will happen at an unpredictable moment. I drew the lively life of Little Offred, with color and vibrance to represent the child in her, but when drawing the older Offred that we all know so well, I drew the image with less innocence, less bright and cheerful colors overall to represent the depressing life that she is currently stuck in.

In chapter 7, Offred is talking to Moira, who said she did a paper on Date Rape. Offered says, “Date rape, I said, you’re so trendy. It sounds like some kind of dessert. Date Rape.” Following with Moria laughing at Offered for her “joke” and then telling Offered to grab her coat. The two then leave the building that they were in and go on about their day. Offred is viewed as having a dark sense of humor, which again, is seen in chapter 16, the Commander just finishes up with having sex with SJ (Serena Joy) and Offred, and Serena is extremely irritated about all of this. “He nods, then turns and leaves the room, closing the door with exaggerated care behind him, as if both of us are his ailing mother. There’s something hilarious about this, but I don’t dare laugh.” It is seen that Offred mostly views many situations as funny, while also expressing high discomfort. But what exactly is this? This is, to me, being in an uncomfortable situation but using laughter as a way to cope with the situation no matter how bad it is. For me, back when my Father left my life for years, my way of coping was laughing and joking about it until the pain went away. But the pain never really goes away, does it? No. As time moves on you really get adjusted to the situation but the pain never really leaves. I feel as if I relate to Offred, in some situations she can control her laughter, but other situations, she just can’t because it’s uncontrollable. I know that feeling of feeling confused; not wanting to laugh but instead it just comes out unexpectedly and then you have everyone looking at you as if you’re crazy or a heartless person. The day when my cat passed away, I was hurt, my chest felt heavy and I felt tears streaming down my cheeks. My hands were shaking as I held my small kitten Salem in my arms, his cold body resting within them. I stared down at him with a frown– but laughter followed. At the time I felt so bad for doing that. Why was I even laughing? I didn’t know. I knew I felt hurt, I knew that I didn’t want him to die, I knew that I tried my absolute best to save him– so I was just as confused as my family. He choked on a metal piece of– I don’t even know, or at least that’s what we assumed because that’s what it sounded like. I realized later on that I reacted that way because I was nervous, numb, and sad all at once. I think it was because that whole situation was unbelievable to me. I never experienced anything like it before; hence why I would laugh at it I guess. This goes for anything, the more I laughed at atrocious things happening, the more I came to the realization that this was nervous laughter, uncomfortable laughter, a coping mechanism that only I could understand. I remember when my sister talked about a woman who was raped, murdered, and then thrown into the dumpster. We all laughed, but it wasn’t a laugh like “oh this is funny”, we all looked at each other with confusion and shame. This goes back to the question of why? And I remember my oldest sister saying that this was a nervous condition, because her whole side of the family has it. And I just took those words from her and now I’m here. Sometimes, even when things aren’t funny, I laugh at them. Nervous condition. That was always my excuse for everything. But now, I genuinely believe it’s because I’m uncomfortable. There’s no way to reverse the situation, there’s no way to stop it, and when you have no control over it, all you can do is laugh. Just like Offred, she has nothing that she can do in that situation BUT laugh. I think the main reason I relate to her is because– not only do I not have control over those situations, laughing is the only amount of power I feel subjected to in those situations. It’s a weird thing to do, a weird way to express having power, but you find power in the small things when you realize how much power you really are restricted from having. I get it now.