Bodies as Territory

Gilead turns women's bodies into state property through religious rhetoric. The Ceremony — a ritualized rape justified by biblical precedent — strips reproduction of consent, intimacy, and humanity. The Handmaids lie between the Wives' legs during the act, making complicity inescapable.

Serena Joy, the Commander's Wife, helped design Gilead's ideology as a television evangelist before the revolution. Now she is trapped by the very rules she promoted, forbidden from reading the Bible she helped weaponize.