This episode beautifully translated a major theme of the original novel to the medium of TV.
A terrible part of being a Handmaid is the crushing boredom and sensory deprivation. All women are forbidden to read and participate in most activities, but the Wives are allowed hobbies, socializing with each other and drinking and smoking. The Marthas work almost all the time which is awful in itself, but at least is something to do.
Except for their walks which include grocery shopping and a bit of conversation, Handmaids are forced to spend a ridiculous amount of time simply hanging out in their rooms waiting to be summoned. Think about this. Spending almost all of one's time in a chair or bed in silence.
It was made more dramatic for television by having Serena take away even the walks and (mostly silent) meals in the kitchen as punishment for failure to get pregnant. But the book makes clear that the time alone in the room is crushing and frightening even with the usual breaks.
She spends a lot of effort struggling to remain sane, which is an issue that the best dystopian literature, real life accounts of the dictatorships, and real and fictional accounts of prison deal with.
This is the part that affected me the most, but I'm not trying to minimize the interesting nature of her developing personal relationship with the Commander who enjoys (on his terms) a certain amount of connection with her even though he intentionally built a society where men and women can't legally have such unsupervised, informal conversations.
A terrible part of being a Handmaid is the crushing boredom and sensory deprivation. All women are forbidden to read and participate in most activities, but the Wives are allowed hobbies, socializing with each other and drinking and smoking. The Marthas work almost all the time which is awful in itself, but at least is something to do.
Except for their walks which include grocery shopping and a bit of conversation, Handmaids are forced to spend a ridiculous amount of time simply hanging out in their rooms waiting to be summoned. Think about this. Spending almost all of one's time in a chair or bed in silence.
It was made more dramatic for television by having Serena take away even the walks and (mostly silent) meals in the kitchen as punishment for failure to get pregnant. But the book makes clear that the time alone in the room is crushing and frightening even with the usual breaks.
She spends a lot of effort struggling to remain sane, which is an issue that the best dystopian literature, real life accounts of the dictatorships, and real and fictional accounts of prison deal with.
This is the part that affected me the most, but I'm not trying to minimize the interesting nature of her developing personal relationship with the Commander who enjoys (on his terms) a certain amount of connection with her even though he intentionally built a society where men and women can't legally have such unsupervised, informal conversations.
