Dystopian Journal: Topic B

Serena Joy struggles with the society the Republic of Gilead in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. She is the wife of Offred's Commander, and just like Offred, struggles to come to terms with what goes on in the society. Everything that happened seems to have aged her. She hates how her husband has sex with Offred, and she has to sit there and watch. She gets to the point where she is willing to disobey the rules in order to have a child and get Offred out of her house. This resistance, however, is not successful and had horrible consequences for her. The man Serena Joy had Offred have sex with, Nick, not only did not get her pregnant, but helped Offred escape and made Serena Joy look bad.
Serena Joy also realized that Offred had been sneaking around with her husband. The two of them, Offred and Serena, always had a rocky relationship because of everything that had to be done for the society. Specifically, sex between the Commander and Offred. Then, the Commander started wanting to see Offred privately in his office at night. They would play Scrabble and everytime she left, Offred would be obligated to give him a kiss "like she meant it". When Serena Joy realized all of this, she was extremely upset. She ends up more miserable in the end than when the story began. The interesting part about Serena Joy's struggle is that it never resolves, but rather gets worse. Everyone else but her seems to have some way to console themselves to cope in society.

Word Count: 263