Contents
Soul Scrolls
Overview
Offred deepens her clandestine relationship with the Commander—receiving contraband magazines and lotion—while feeling new guilt and leverage during the Ceremony. Ofglen quietly reveals a resistance network at Soul Scrolls as an Eyes van snatches a man. Flashbacks recount the regime’s takeover and women’s dispossession. Later, the Commander explains the Latin motto as a schoolboy joke and admits the previous Handmaid hanged herself, prompting Offred to demand real information.
Summary
Morning begins with Cora finding Offred asleep on the closet floor after a sleepless night; they collude over the broken breakfast to avoid questions. As spring turns lush, Offred describes her covert arrangement with the Commander, signaled by Nick, and the logistical risks posed by Serena Joy’s routines. Expecting sexual transgression, she instead plays Scrabble; on later visits the Commander gives her a forbidden fashion magazine and, after she asks, hand lotion, revealing his ignorance of Handmaids’ surveillance.
At the next Ceremony, the private meetings make the act awkward. Offred now sees the Commander as a person, resents and pities Serena Joy, and feels illicit power and guilt. She warns the Commander not to show familiarity before Serena. Aunt Lydia’s rhetoric about harmonious households echoes as Offred labels herself an “outside woman,” even as the arrangement gives her a hollow kind of happiness.
On a shopping walk, Ofglen and Offred watch Soul Scrolls’ prayer machines. Meeting eyes in the glass, they risk trust: Ofglen questions whether God listens to machines, and they confess disbelief. Ofglen hints at a clandestine “us,” instructing caution. An Eyes van abruptly abducts an ordinary man, and Offred feels relief that she’s spared—this time.
Alone later, Offred recalls Moira’s past arguments and then the coup: assassinations, emergency rule, censorship, ID passes. Her bank account is frozen for being female; she’s summarily dismissed from the library as armed men enforce new laws. Moira vows to go underground; Luke comforts Offred, but a subtle shift in their power unsettles her.
Back in the Commander’s study, Offred reads voraciously until she chooses to talk. She writes the closet Latin—Nolite te bastardes carborundorum—prompting the Commander to reveal it’s a schoolboy mock-Latin joke: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” He admits the prior Handmaid learned it here and hanged herself, after Serena found out. Feeling leverage through his guilt, Offred asks for real knowledge: “What’s going on.”
Who Appears
- OffredHandmaid narrator; deepens secret meetings with the Commander, bonds with Ofglen, recalls the coup, and seeks real information.
- The CommanderSummons Offred for Scrabble, gives contraband magazine and lotion, decodes the Latin motto, reveals prior Handmaid’s suicide.
- OfglenShopping partner; quietly reveals a resistance network at Soul Scrolls and instructs Offred on caution.
- Serena JoyCommander’s Wife; her presence complicates the Ceremony; indirectly connected to prior Handmaid’s exposure.
- NickChauffeur; signals Offred’s summons with his cap; object of Offred’s tension and speculation.
- CoraMartha; finds Offred on the floor, helps conceal the accident, later discovered the previous Handmaid’s body.
- RitaMartha; grumbles about kitchen mishaps, emblem of household scrutiny and routine.
- LukeOffred’s partner in memories; comforts her after job loss, revealing a new imbalance of power.
- MoiraOffred’s rebellious friend; warns of the coup, plans to go underground, past debates shape Offred’s views.
- Offred’s motherAppears in memories as a feminist activist; a measure for Offred’s later understanding.
- The EyesSecret police; their van seizes a man on the street, heightening fear and obedience.
- Offred’s daughterRemembered in domestic flashbacks; symbol of what Offred lost to the regime.
- Library directorDismisses Offred under new laws as armed men enforce her expulsion.
- Corner-store clerkRefuses Offred’s invalidated card, signaling women’s frozen accounts.