Chicken

In the Republic of Gilead, chicken is a staple of the Commander's table, but it is never simply food. For Offred, the handmaid, each chicken she brings home from the market is freighted with the politics of the household, the resentments of the Marthas, and the ache of a lost ordinary life. The bird is a daily reminder that even the most basic sustenance is rationed, controlled, and subject to the whims of those who hold power.

Procurement and Status

Chicken is not always available. When Offred shops at All Flesh, the store marked by a large wooden pork chop hanging from chains, she must negotiate for what she can get. On one shopping day, she brings back a chicken wrapped in butcher's paper and trussed with string, but Rita, the Martha, immediately pronounces it "scrawny" and "bony," complaining that it will have to do. Offred explains that there wasn't much else, but Rita ignores her. The exchange reveals the rigid hierarchy of the household: Offred is the one who walks to the market, but Rita is the one who judges the quality of the provisions. The chicken thus becomes a token of Offred's low status—she is a courier, not a chooser. When Rita instructs her to "tell them fresh, for the eggs" and to specify "a chicken, not a hen," she is asserting her authority over the handmaid, who must relay the message without complaint.

Preparation and Domestic Tension

Back in the kitchen, the chicken is subjected to Rita's expert but grudging scrutiny. She undoes the string and the glazed paper, prods the chicken, flexes a wing, and pokes a finger into the cavity to fish out the giblets. The bird lies on the table "headless and without feet, goose pimpled as though shivering." Cora, the younger Martha, greets the chicken with something like delight, but Rita dismisses it as scrawny. The tension between the two Marthas—Cora's eagerness and Rita's disapproval—mirrors their attitudes toward Offred herself. Cora, who hopes Offred will conceive, is more sympathetic; Rita, who sees the handmaid's red dress as a mark of moral contamination, is perpetually surly. The chicken, a neutral object, becomes the occasion for these small, daily conflicts.

Memory and Loss

The chicken also triggers Offred's memories of the time before. When she sees the chicken wrapped in butcher's paper, she recalls the "endless white plastic shopping bags" from the supermarket, which she used to stuff under the sink until they bulged out. Luke, her husband, would complain and periodically throw them all out. She remembers a specific fear he voiced: that their daughter could get one of the bags over her head. This memory, prompted by the sight of the chicken's packaging, is a painful reminder of the domestic life she has lost—the mundane arguments, the casual worries, the abundance of plastic bags that now seem like a luxury. The chicken, in its paper and string, is a link to that vanished world, a world where shopping was a chore, not a privilege.

The Body and the Butter

Chicken also appears in the context of Offred's bodily care. After the Ceremony, she retreats to her room and retrieves a pat of butter she has hidden in the toe of her shoe. She rubs the butter over her face and hands, a trick she learned at the Red Center, to keep her skin soft. The butter is a substitute for the hand lotion and face cream that are forbidden to handmaids—"vanities" that the Wives have decreed they cannot have. The chicken, indirectly, is connected to this small act of resistance: the butter that Offred hoards from her dinner tray (which often includes a chicken thigh) becomes a tool for preserving her humanity. As she notes, "As long as we do this, butter our skin to keep it soft, we can believe that we will some day get out, that we will be touched again, in love or desire." The chicken, consumed as food, is transformed into a means of maintaining hope.

The Chicken as a Symbol of the System

Ultimately, the chicken embodies the contradictions of Gilead. It is a relatively scarce and expensive commodity, available only to Commanders and their households. Offred's ability to obtain it is a sign of her value as a reproductive vessel, yet she has no control over how it is prepared or whether it is deemed acceptable. The chicken is both a privilege and a reminder of her subordination. It is also a site of memory, connecting her to a past where she had agency over her own shopping, her own kitchen, her own family. In Gilead, even a chicken is never just a chicken; it is a measure of rank, a source of conflict, a trigger for grief, and a material object that can be repurposed into a small, private ceremony of self-care.