The Handmaid's Tale - The Commander

Offred’s relationship with the Commander is best represented by a

situation she remembers from a documentary on the Holocaust. In the

film, the mistress of a brutal death camp guard defended the man she loved, claiming that he was not a monster.

“How easy it is to invent a humanity,” Offred thinks. In other words, anyone

can seem human, and even likable, given the right set of circumstances. But

even if the Commander is likable and can be kind or considerate, his

responsibility for the creation of Gilead and his callousness to the hell he

created for women means that he, like the Nazi guard, is a monster.

Based on the story as told by Offred herself, we did think the Commander was a decent man, as decent as the men could be in those times. But when you read the epilogue where

the seminar is held discussing her discovered recordings and it has been determined that the Commander is a man who was largely responsible for what happened back then, our thoughts of him changed. We did think he was a monster.