Score Pad

The Score Pad is a small, seemingly trivial object in the Commander's study that becomes a charged symbol of forbidden literacy, power, and the fragile intimacy between Offred and the Commander during their clandestine Scrabble games. It is the surface on which Offred first writes in the Commander's presence, transforming a mundane office supply into a dangerous instrument of self-expression and a tangible link to the woman who came before her.

Appearance and Context

The Score Pad is a desktop notepad, distinguished by a little smile-button face printed at the top of each page. This cheerful, mass-produced design, a relic from the time before, stands in stark contrast to the grim, regulated world of Gilead. The Commander keeps it on his desk, in his private study, a room where women are forbidden to enter. It is part of the ordinary office equipment of his secret life, alongside his Computalk, pen-holder set, and the locked box containing the Bible.

The Act of Writing

During one of their nightly meetings, Offred asks the Commander about the Latin phrase she found scratched in her closet: "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum." To write it down, the Commander thrusts his roller-tip pen across the desk at her "almost defiantly, as if taking a dare." He then hands her the Score Pad as the only available paper. For Offred, the act of holding the pen is intensely sensual and powerful: "The pen between my fingers is sensuous, alive almost, I can feel its power, the power of the words it contains." She recalls Aunt Lydia's warning, "Pen Is Envy," and realizes that just holding the pen is an act of envy. She carefully prints the phrase on the smile-button page, copying it from her memory of the closet wall. This single act of writing, on a pad meant for tallying game scores, becomes a profound transgression, a brief reclamation of a forbidden skill.

Significance and Connection

The Score Pad serves as the medium for a crucial revelation. When the Commander takes the page from her and looks at it, he begins to laugh, explaining that the phrase is not real Latin but a schoolboy joke meaning "Don't let the bastards grind you down." This moment shatters Offred's interpretation of the message as a solemn prayer or command, revealing it instead as a piece of dark humor shared between the Commander and the previous Handmaid. The Score Pad, therefore, becomes the physical link between Offred and her predecessor, a witness to the same secret exchange of confidences. It is on this same pad that Offred realizes the previous woman must have learned the phrase in this very room, with this very man, during similar sessions of "boyhood reminiscence." The object thus embodies the cyclical nature of the Commander's relationships with his Handmaids, transforming a moment of connection into a painful reminder of her own replaceability.

Theft and Power

Offred's desire to steal the Score Pad is part of a larger fantasy of reclaiming power through petty theft. Earlier, in the sitting room, she contemplates stealing the scrolled ashtray or the silver pillbox, imagining that possessing such an object would make her feel powerful. The Score Pad, however, represents a more potent form of theft: the theft of the ability to write and to leave a mark. While she ultimately does not steal it, the impulse underscores her desperate need for agency in a world that has stripped her of all possessions and identity. The Score Pad, with its innocent smile-button face, becomes a silent accomplice to the dangerous, intimate games played in the Commander's study, a symbol of the fragile and unequal power dynamics that define their relationship.