Chapter Twenty-Five Summary & Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
Offred wakes to Cora dropping the breakfast tray in shock. Cora finds Offred curled on the floor in her cupboard and initially thinks she has tried to run away. Offred claims she fainted, and Cora eagerly assumes it is a sign of pregnancy. Offred denies it. Cora lies about the broken tray to avoid questions, and they both pretend nothing happened. The narrative then moves through spring. Offred watches Serena Joy in the garden, cutting seed pods with shears, and covets the shears. She reflects on the garden’s subversive vitality. The secret arrangement with the Commander continues: Nick signals when it is safe to visit. They play Scrabble, and the Commander gives her a vintage Vogue magazine, which stirs painful longing for the lost world. Offred asks for hand lotion; he provides a poor-quality substitute that she must keep in his study. She realizes that for him she is only a whim.
Key Events
- Cora finds Offred on the floor and fears she has escaped.
- Offred defuses the situation by claiming dizziness; Cora lies to cover the broken eggs.
- Offred observes Serena Joy snipping seed pods in the garden and longs for the shears.
- Nick signals when Offred may visit the Commander (hat askew or missing).
- The Commander lets Offred win at Scrabble and shows her a 1970s Vogue magazine.
- Offred requests hand lotion; the Commander gives her a generic bottle but warns about the smell.
- Offred keeps the lotion hidden in the Commander‘s study.
- She concludes that to him she is merely a whim.
Character Development
Offred: Becomes more calculating and desperate. She accepts small privileges (lotion, magazine) while recognizing the risk. Her anger surfaces when she snaps at the Commander about inspections. She maintains a bitter, ironic inner voice.
The Commander: Reveals his loneliness and ignorance of Handmaids’ real conditions. He treats Offred as a confidante but also as a curiosity, indulging his nostalgia for pre-Gilead culture.
Cora: Shows loyalty by lying for Offred, though partly for her own protection. Her hope that Offred is pregnant underscores the regime‘s biological fixation.
Serena Joy: Appears only in Offred‘s observations—kneeling in the garden cutting seed pods. The act suggests both religious penance and symbolic castration of the flowers, mirroring her control over Offred.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Power and Surveillance: The Commander believes his study is outside the rules, but Offred reminds him of routine room searches. The gap between his ignorance and her lived reality highlights the regime’s pervasive control.
Nostalgia and Forbidden Knowledge: The Vogue magazine represents a lost world of choice and transformation. Offred‘s longing for it reveals how deeply the regime has starved its citizens of memory and desire.
The Garden as Resistance: Serena’s flowers “bursting upwards, wordlessly” suggest that silenced truths will eventually force their way into the open. The garden‘s sensuality is subversive in Gilead’s sterile order.
Commodification and Exchange: Offred trades her body for small luxuries; the Commander trades forbidden objects for companionship. Their “arrangement” mirrors the larger system that reduces women to function.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter deepens the psychological complexity of Offred’s situation. It shows her navigating a triangle of power—Cora’s complicity, Serena’s covert violence, and the Commander‘s paternalistic nostalgia. The Scrabble games and magazine scene expose the absurdity of Gilead’s “separate but equal” ideology: even a Commander must break the rules to feel human. Offred’s request for hand lotion is a small act of reclaiming agency, yet it also ties her more tightly to the Commander‘s whims. The chapter foreshadows greater risks as Offred becomes increasingly entangled in forbidden exchanges.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Cora lie about the broken breakfast tray?
Cora lies partly to protect Offred from interrogation but mainly to avoid her own trouble with Rita. A lost breakfast would require explanation and extra work. By hiding Offred’s collapse, Cora ensures the household routine continues undisturbed, preserving her own position.
2. What does the Vogue magazine symbolize for Offred?
The magazine symbolizes the lost world of choice, beauty, and transformation. Offred remembers it as a promise of endless possibilities and immortality. Seeing it again hurts because it reminds her of everything Gilead has erased—her career, her marriage, her identity. The Commander’s offering is both a gift and a cruel taunt.
3. How does Offred view her relationship with the Commander by the end of the chapter?
Offred understands that she is disposable—a whim, not a partner. She recognizes the banality of his excuse (“my wife doesn’t understand me”) and resents his ignorance of her real suffering. Yet she continues the arrangement for what small benefits she can extract, even as she knows it deepens her jeopardy.