Scrabble Game
The Scrabble Game is a forbidden board game that becomes the central ritual of Offred's secret nighttime meetings with the Commander, transforming from a trivial pastime into a dangerous act of intimacy, power exchange, and psychological negotiation within the oppressive structure of Gilead. What was once a game for old women and adolescents in the time before becomes, under the regime, an indecent and illicit act—a symbol of the Commander's compromised position and Offred's precarious leverage.
Appearance and Forbidden Nature
The Scrabble set appears in the Commander's study, a room Offred describes as "an oasis of the forbidden" filled with books and other contraband. The Commander takes the box from one of his desk drawers and opens it, revealing the plasticized wooden counters and the board divided into squares, along with the little holders for setting the letters in. Offred and the Commander together turn the counters over, preparing to play. The game is strictly forbidden for Handmaids; reading and writing are prohibited, and the possession of such a game is dangerous. Offred reflects that now it is "something different"—forbidden, dangerous, indecent, something the Commander cannot do with his Wife. It has become desirable, and the Commander has compromised himself by offering it, as if he has offered her drugs.
The Experience of Playing
For Offred, playing Scrabble is a profoundly sensual and liberating experience. She holds the glossy counters with their smooth edges and fingers the letters, describing the feeling as "voluptuous." She spells words like Larynx, Valance, Quince, Zygote, Limp, and Gorge, savoring the luxury of language. The counters feel like candies made of peppermint, cool and delicious, and she imagines putting them into her mouth. The act of spelling is like using a language she had once known but had nearly forgotten—a language of cafés, absinthe, and shrimp in newspaper, things she had only read about. Her tongue feels thick with the effort of spelling, and her mind lurches and stumbles among the sharp consonants and ovoid vowels. The Commander is patient when she hesitates, offering to look up correct spellings in the dictionary, and Offred realizes that the first time he let her win.
Ritual and Power Dynamics
The Scrabble games become a regular part of Offred's clandestine visits to the Commander's study, occurring two or three nights a week after dinner when she receives the signal from Nick. The games follow a routine: two games, then sometimes reading from old magazines or novels, and finally the obligatory kiss. Offred wins the first game but lets the Commander win the second, still uncertain what she will be able to ask for in exchange. The Commander, after a few drinks, sometimes becomes silly and cheats at Scrabble, encouraging Offred to do the same; they take extra letters and make up nonexistent words like "smurt" and "crup," giggling together. This shared childishness creates a strange intimacy, though Offred remains aware that she is only a whim to him. The Scrabble board becomes a space where the rigid hierarchies of Gilead momentarily dissolve, replaced by a fragile, conspiratorial equality.
Thematic Significance
The Scrabble Game embodies the central paradox of Offred's relationship with the Commander: it is both a violation of the regime's rules and a pathetic, almost laughable substitute for genuine human connection. Offred finds the request to play Scrabble "kinky in the extreme, a violation in its own way," and she struggles to understand what the Commander truly wants from her. The game represents his desire for companionship, for intellectual stimulation, for a return to the normalcy of the time before—a normalcy he himself helped destroy. For Offred, the Scrabble games are a dangerous form of freedom, an "eyeblink of it," but also a reminder of everything she has lost. The game becomes a bargaining chip, a way to extract small concessions like hand lotion, and ultimately a symbol of the Commander's guilt and vulnerability. When Offred learns that the previous Handmaid hanged herself after similar meetings, the Scrabble Game takes on a darker significance, becoming a link to her predecessor and a warning of the stakes involved.
