Soul Scrolls
Soul Scrolls is a ubiquitous franchise in the Republic of Gilead, a chain of automated prayer outlets found in every city center and suburb. The storefront is shatterproof, and inside, row upon row of printout machines—known irreverently as "Holy Rollers" among the Handmaids—churn out prayers endlessly. These prayers are ordered by Compuphone, a service that allows the Commanders' Wives to demonstrate piety and faithfulness to the regime, thereby boosting their husbands' careers. The machines talk as they print, their toneless metallic voices repeating the same phrases over and over, a murmur that from outside sounds like a devout crowd on its knees. Each machine is adorned with a gold eye painted on its side, flanked by two small golden wings, a visual echo of the regime's ubiquitous surveillance symbol.
Operation and Purpose
The system offers five distinct prayers: for health, wealth, a death, a birth, or a sin. To place an order, a customer punches in the number of the desired prayer, her own account number for debiting, and the number of times the prayer is to be repeated. Once printed and "said," the paper rolls back through another slot and is recycled into fresh paper, creating a closed, sterile loop of devotion. There are no human attendants inside the building; the machines run entirely by themselves. This mechanized piety is a sign of status and orthodoxy, a way for the Wives to perform their religious duties without the messiness of genuine faith or community.
Symbolic Significance
The location of Soul Scrolls is itself a commentary on the regime's values. Offred recalls that the building once housed a lingerie store, a place that sold "pink and silver boxes, colored pantyhose, brassieres with lace, silk scarves"—items associated with female vanity and sexuality, now deemed subversive and suppressed. The transformation of a site of personal adornment into a site of state-sanctioned prayer underscores Gilead's project of replacing individual desire with collective, controlled piety. The machines are a perversion of religious practice, reducing prayer to a commodity that can be ordered, paid for, and mechanically repeated, devoid of any personal connection to the divine.
A Site of Subversion
Despite its official purpose, Soul Scrolls becomes a crucial location for clandestine communication. Ofglen, Offred's shopping partner, chooses to stand outside the shatterproof windows, watching the prayers well out from the machines, as a pretext for a whispered conversation. She tells Offred, "I figure it's the safest place. We look like we're praying, is all." This moment of risk and revelation transforms the store from a symbol of oppression into a space of potential resistance. The very mechanism designed to enforce orthodoxy—the public display of piety—provides cover for the subversive act of speaking treason. The store's function as a "safe" place for whispered dissent highlights the regime's blind spot: its reliance on outward conformity can be exploited by those who understand its logic.
