Friends,

Ok so this passage really pissed me off.  You know when you read a book or watch a movie there is that one character that you want to smack in the face or kick in the face to let out your frustration, well for me it's the Commander.  Gahhh how pissed I was when I read this.

   '''It's a club?' I say.
   'Well, that's what we call it, among ourselves.  The club.'
   'I thought this sort of thing was strictly forbidden,' I say.
   'Well officially,' he says.  'But everyone's human, after all.'
   I wait for him to elaborate on this, but he doesn't, so I say, 'What does that mean?'
   'It means you can't cheat Nature,' he says.  'Nature demandsvariety, for men.  It stands to reason, it's part of the precreational strategy.  It's Nature's plan.'  I don't say anything, so he goes on.
   'Women know that instinctively.  Why did they buy so many clothes, in the old days?  To trick men into thinking they were several different women.  A new one each day.'
   He says this and he believes it, but he says many things that way.  Maybe he believes it, maybe he doesn't, or maybe he does both at the same times.  Impossible to tell what he believes.
   'So now that we don't have different clothes,' I say, ' you merely have different women.'  This is irony, but he doesn't acknowledge it.
   'It solves a lot of problems,' he says, without a twitch.  
   I don't reply to this.  I am getting fed up with him.  i feel likefreezing on him, passing the rest of the eveningin sulky wordlessness.  But I can't afford that and i know it.  Whatever this is, it's still an evening out.
   What I'd really like to do is talk to the women, but I see scant chance of that.
   'Who are these people?' I ask him
...................
   'No,' I say, 'I mean the women.'
   'Oh,' he says.  'Well, some of them are real pros.  Working girls'-- he laughs-- 'from the time before.  They couldn't be assimilated; anyway, most of them prefer it here.'
   'And the others?'
   'The others?' he says.  'Well, we have quite a collection.  That one there, the one in green, she's a sociologist.  Or was.  Thst one was a lawyer, that one was in business, an executive position: some sort of fast food chain or maybe it was hotels.  I'm told you can have quite a good conversation with her if all you can feel like is talking.  They prefer it here, too.'"

Agh there is so much wrong with this conversation agh!!!!!!!  Don't you feel like just punching him!!  So Ofglen is taken to a club, but interestingly enough the club is only for the high officials.  Ordinary men can't come here.  It is funny because the officals are supposed to be the most religious and most dedicated to the laws, but as we see it is the opposite.  In these cases, the laws are never placed because of the enforcer's belive in those laws.  It's merely because they want something to assert their power.  This is again seen in the fact that the prostitutes in the club are mostly 'working girls'.  See the Commander doesn't even call them women, he calls them girls.  Think about the language he is using when referring to the women is insulting, its as if he is enjoying the position that these women seem to have.

Also when he says that its nature that men have to a variety of women ti be satisfied, but if that is true to him then why aren't other men able to get the same.  You see the Commander doesn't really belive that statement in generally, he is mostly talking about himself and all these officials.

It also seems that the Commander believes that women desire to catch men's attention.  He says how women used to dress up in different outfits to make others that they are different people.  Clearly he hasn't tried to understand women at all, please all he bases his statements are on what he thinks.  He probably desired different women and thought this so as to justify his disgusting thoughts.  This is seen in how he treats Ofglen as pet instead of an actual woman.  It is really weird because considering how woman are the ones who needed the most because they give birth to the children, yet they are treated the worst and thought to be the ones that could destroy society, to the extreme of not even allowing them to read and write.

Atwood is making a very bold statement with this dialogue, and it is obvious when reading it.

Ok let us talk about the Commander in general, because many people seem to like the Commander since he treats Ofglen better than the others. But I absolutely disagree, the Commander is one of the most detestable characters in the book for me.  He doesn't see any woman, not even his wife as a person.  He doesn't acknowledge the pain that Serena Joy might feel from the fact that he is always woth other women including the Handmaids.  He doesn't treat Ofglen in a kind manner, he treats her as we treat a dog.  He seems to like to see how uncomfortable she is with everything in the society, which is horrible.  He is getting off on it.  What is there to like in this guy,  He is hypocritical especially.  Many peoeple think that the more obvious the villian the more devestating they can be but that isnt true.  thOSE WHO CAN SNEAK AROUND ESPecially with acting nice are the most dangerous, and that includes the Commander.