Offred is not only weighed against her friend Moria as a rebellious woman, but her shopping partner Offglen is also part of the resistance movement. ( I appologise in advance for Atwoods twisted sence of humour in making all the handmaids names start with ‘Off’) Offglen offers Offred a chance to escape early on as they become more familiar with each other. Offred is part of an undergroud group that is trying to overthrow “The Eye’s” (even more eye imagery!) They collect information about the commanders and anything that they can. They have created a code word ‘Mayday’ (which as most ofyou know is a modern times military distress call) that would signal a handmaid in trouble and they would be evacuated from Gilead but it is only done in extreme circumstances. The rebels are smart and allow everyone to know only one other person in the group so that if anyone is caught only 1 other person is at risk. Offglen is outgoing and hardened by her situation. At one point her fellow rebel is thrown into a mass of Handmaids to be beaten after being accused of a violent rape which he didn’t commit. Instead of shinking away as she was forced to watch her friend be beaten to death she is the first to jump in and mercifully knocks him out cold as quickly as possible to save him the pain. In contrast, Offred cringed from the attack and even accusses Offglen of being icious in her assault of the man. As I have mentioned previously Offred is to docile to take any action and even when given the chance to help in relative safety refuses to help the very people that eventually save her life. Some people who have read the book may argue that Offglen is just as weak as she does commit suicide at the end of the novel. But in my opinion she only does this because she hears the ‘Eyes’ coming and does not want to forfeit information during the interogation. Even in her death she is being corageous and sacrificing herself for the resistance.
I pose a question though, if Margaret Atwood is a strong feminist why would she kill off all of the strong, leaders that are female in her novel and rescue the women who is essentially a doormat?
