Offred's Possibilities

Offred can only trust her own mind, and she’s doing her best to compartmentalize all of the trauma she’s facing in a very logical way. For instance, she simultaneously imagines Luke as being dead, in prison, or alive and escaped—all in hopes of ensuring that she’s prepared for each outcome. She dreams of her daughter, but also considers her to be simultaneously alive and dead. In a dream and in reality. 

Imagination and possibility are all that Offred has. She places the daffodil within the bed based on a hope, a longshot. She’s desperate for the possibility that her token will help the next Handmaid, similar to how she discovered clues in her room from the previous Handmaid. But again, all Offred has is the ability to account for all these scenarios. 

How does preparing for the future while reconciling with events in the past affect her psyche? Will Offred ever fully recover from this society? For those who’ve read the novel in its entirety, how does this theme relate to the ending?

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