Good Example Of Book Review On An Analysis Of The Book The Handmaids Tale

Moira is a close friend of the narrator Offred. They were college friends who shared some good times together but lost touch of each other. When they met at the Center, a place that represents women opression and injustice, Moira became the voice of reason, sense and action, and a strong spirit that will not easily give in. Offred sees Moira as her safety, saying “It makes me feel safer, that Moira is here” (Chapter 13, p. 71). In a place where women are forced to submission, Moira represents the strength that the women in the Center were robbed of, and the female resistance to Gilead.
In a society where sexuality is repressed, Moira admits that she is a lesbian. Even though she is punished for it, her resistance is not defeated. She continues to be the voice of reason and sense, slapping Janine and shouting at her until she came back to her senses after acting delusional, talking to a non-existent customer in a restaurant where she’s working. When she tries to escape from the Red Center, she represents a woman of power, defying the fate that the women in the Center have learned to adopt. Offred’s comment, “Moira had power now, she’d been set loose, she’d set herself loose” solidifies Moira’s resolve in claiming her freedom despite the consequence.
When Moira and Offred meet again at Jezebel’s, Offred learned that Moira was captured before she could cross the border. Instead of being sent to the Colonies where political prisoners and dangerous people are sent, she chose to work at Jezebel’s. Moira is wearing tattered clothes, using drugs like the other women, and as much a “whore” like the women in the Center. She sounded indifferent, more submissive to her fate. Offred thinks, “Have they really done it to her then, taken away something – what? – that used to be so central to her?” (Chapter 38, p.62).
Offred did not see Moira again after that night, but her image continues to bother her. Moira is courage and hope for Offred, that even though she herself did not have those, she at least knows that they still exist. Offred realizes that Gilead has really won, and feeling sad for her friend, “I’d like her to end with something daring and spectacular, some outrage, something that would befit her” (Chapter 38, p.69). Clearly, it did not happen to Moira, and instead of her strength, she was now a picture of a woman beaten.