Existing within a totalitarian society in which life is centered over one idea,
thoughts of a utopia is guaranteed from ones oppressed within the society and a desire to fulfill their ambitions and obligations. In Margaret Atwood totalitarian dystopia science fiction novel "The Handmaid's Tale", the narrator Offred's mind is pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires to supply Serena Joy with a child and escape to find Luke and her daughter from pre-Gilead.
Owned by The Commander and his wife Serena Joy, she must take up his name Fred and become his property as Offred. Her only obligation within her society is to supply Serena Joy a child and later supply a child for another family. Her ovaries give her the status of handmaid since she can still function the task of giving birth to a potentially healthy child. Throughout the novel Offred desires to have a child grow in her so that she will not be sent to the communities. The narrator explains "each month I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes it means failure I have failed once again to fulfill the expectations of others, which have become my own." The narrator allows for the reader to understand that child bearing before was not an obligation for her but one of someone else, but now it has become a desire that is necessary for her survival. Thus Offred must conform into her present state, due to the drugs they give her and constant mind control she has psychologically conformed to the totalitarian society .
Living as a sexual slave or handmaid, Offred desires to escape and potentially find
Luke her husband from pre-Gilead and their daughter. Offred constantly speaks of her past with her family and of her desire and hope to find them alive and in a better place. The narrator writes concerning Luke finding her, "the message will say that I must have patience: sooner or later he will get me out, we will find her, wherever they've put her. She'll remember us and we will be all three of us together. Meanwhile I must endure, keep myself safe for later." Although Offred knows the thought is a pipe dream she none the less believes in it, already her mind is thinking of hope, hope to be free, hope for a happy ending from such a sad life.
Throughout "The Handmaid's Tale" the reader is given to understand the conflicting directions by two compelling desires that the narrators mind is pulled. In one scenario she conforms to her present state and in another she wishes to escape and find solitude. Psychologically Offred is indeed brainwashed but within her mind she still has desires of her own not made by her society. Sometimes it is easier to abide by the law of a society and live then revolt which potentially leads to death.
