The next example of power within the regime is when we first meet Serena Joy at the front door of the Commanders house. Serena Joy displays her power by the way she treats Offred, they way looks at Offred upon her arrival and the way she does not move aside to let Offred into the house. This is a display of power showing that this house is Serena Joy’s domain, her territory, and everyone in the house must obey her since she will not tolerate any disobedience. Serena Joy is also able to beat her handmaid, but only with out the use of implements, Offred tells us of how it is the wives right to beat the handmaids and yet if they kill or seriously injure them the wives can be put to death just as the handmaids or the other men can be; this can also be seen in the chapters on the salvaging as the first people who are executed are two handmaids for murdering or harming their Commanders or his family and the third person to be executed was a wife, Offred tells us that the only reason for her execution would be that she must of harmed her handmaid or her husband. For the wives there is not much power and therefore the affect of it on them is very little, the only affect is that they know they are better than the handmaids even if they have no power they know that they do not have to suffer the indignity of sleeping with a stranger and then to be looked down on by everyone with in the regime even the Marthas who are just glorified slaves to the households that they live in. The novel shows Serena Joys struggle for power by the way that she contends with the other wives for the first to have a child and contends with Offred for the Commanders love, which he gives to Offred move than to his own wife.
The people with the most power in Gilead is the men they are given positions of importance with the running of the regime, they are given guns and are able to kill anyone who they feel is a traitor to the cause. We see this in the Commander mainly before the ceremony when he makes the rest of the household wait for the bible reading until he comes in, but we also see a side of the Commander that he does not show often not even to his wife the side of him that is compassionate and caring and wants to help his handmaid. In the chapters about the ceremony the first event is a bible reading in which everyone must attend, they sit in the front room and wait for the Commander to enter and begin reading from the bible, this is another display of power as the females in the household are not allowed to read, write and so the bible is locked in a chest. In the pre-ceremony the other people must wait until the Commander comes and reads to them. Through the whole novel you do not see how the power that the Commander has affects him, but what we do see is that he is unhappy with it and regrets some of the things that he has done in the past, we also see that the even though the Commander has power he does abuse it by seeing Offred in secret and then taking her to Jezebel’s for a night out. He also gives Offred a magazine, which is not allowed as see, is not supposed to be reading.
There is no display of a power struggle when it comes to the Commander as he is male and therefore people must respect him and obey him depending o his status within the regime. The only other character that has power is Offred. She does not have any power at the being of the novel of as the novel goes on she gains more confidence and therefore gets more power from things that the other characters do through out the novel. There are three major events when Offred gains the power that she relies on by the end of the novel. The first event is when the Commander starts to invite Offred to his private quarters and they begin to have a friendly relationship where they talk and play games and read, the power that this gives Offred is that she has a hold over him as he not supposed to see her out side of the ceremony also she is able to convince him to allow her to read and he gives her small gifts that she has been craving since she was captured by the regime. This allows her to have some small piece of power that could destroy the Commander if Offred decided to tell the Eyes, this event allows Offred to gain some small amount of security within her life, she can now see the Commander in a different light and begins to feel sorry for him and especially for Serena Joy. The second event is when Offred walking partner Ofglen tells her that she is a member of the Mayday movement (the underground resistance movement). This in its self was a dangerous thing for Ofglen to do as she could have been reported to the authorities for treason and executed after being interrogated by the secret police of the regime. That piece of information could of given Offred the means to blackmail someone in her past life if it was treasonous and therefore she has power over yet another person, but she does not want to know this information as it could mean that she at any time could be arrested by the eyes and interrogated by them for information even though she does not know any more than that Ofglen is a member of the movement. We can see that Offred does not want this information and is scared of its consequences as she contemplates suicide after hearing that Ofglen had committed suicide before the eyes came for her and then Offred gave away that she knew of Ofglens treasury to the new Ofglen which meant that someone else had the power to kill if she wanted to.
