Magazine (Vogue)
The Magazine (Vogue) is a glossy artifact from the pre-Gilead era that the Commander keeps hidden in his study and shows to Offred during their clandestine Scrabble games. It is a physical remnant of a world the regime has systematically erased, and its appearance in the Commander's private space reveals the contradictions at the heart of Gilead's power structure. For Offred, the magazine is both a painful reminder of the freedoms she has lost and a dangerous object that exposes the Commander's own nostalgia and the regime's selective enforcement of its prohibitions.
Appearance and Provenance
The magazine is an old issue of Vogue, dating from the 1970s, which the Commander describes as "a curio of sorts." It features a model on glossy paper with blown hair, a neck scarf, and lipstick, advertising the fall fashions. The Commander holds it with a wistful smile, looking at the model as if she were "an almost extinct animal, at the zoo." He obtained it through means that are not entirely honest, as all such materials were supposed to have been destroyed in the house-to-house searches and bonfires that followed the regime's rise. The magazine reeks of the black market, and its survival is a testament to the Commander's privileged position, which allows him to keep what is forbidden to the multitudes.
The Commander's Motivation
The Commander shows the magazine to Offred not out of a desire to educate or liberate her, but to amuse himself and to create a shared secret. He admits that he has no one else to show it to, revealing a profound loneliness and a longing for the past. His wife, Serena Joy, would not understand, and he and Offred have "nothing in common" anymore. The magazine is a tool for the Commander to recreate a semblance of the intimacy and conversation he once had, but it is also a display of his power: he can break the rules with impunity, and he finds pleasure in watching Offred engage with a forbidden object. His act is a juvenile display of mastery, a way to demonstrate that he is above the very laws he helps enforce.
Offred's Response and the Meaning of the Magazine
For Offred, the magazine is a source of intense longing and pain. She wants it "with a force that made the ends of my fingers ache," even as she recognizes the triviality of her desire. The magazine's promise is not merely about fashion or beauty; it is a promise of transformation, endless possibility, and even immortality. The images of women—bold, striding, confident, with "horsy acquisitive teeth"—stand in stark contrast to the enforced modesty and invisibility of Offred's own red dress and white wings. The magazine reminds her of a time when she, too, could choose, could be "undone" or not. It is a symbol of the freedom to shape one's own identity, a freedom that Gilead has systematically destroyed. Offred feels that looking at the magazine is a violation of the regime's rules, but she also feels a sense of "naughty" pleasure, a small act of rebellion against the Aunts' teachings. The magazine is not just a picture; it is a portal to a lost self.
The Magazine as a Symbol of the Regime's Hypocrisy
The magazine's very existence in the Commander's study exposes the hypocrisy of Gilead's ideology. The regime preaches purity and the destruction of all "vanities," yet its highest officials hoard the very materials they publicly burn. The Commander's justification—that what is dangerous in the hands of the multitudes is safe for those whose motives are "beyond reproach"—is a transparent rationalization of his own privilege. The magazine is a symbol of the double standard that underpins Gilead: the rules are for the masses, not for the elite. It also reveals the regime's inability to fully erase the past; the old world persists in hidden corners, a constant, silent challenge to the new order. The magazine is a piece of evidence that the Commander's world is built on a foundation of selective memory and enforced forgetting.
