Toilet Lever

The Toilet Lever is a small, pointed metal rod that Moira removes from the interior of a toilet at the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center, using it as an improvised weapon to threaten Aunt Elizabeth and effect her escape. In a system where every object is scrutinized for its potential as a tool of resistance—where mirrors are replaced with tin, chandeliers are removed to prevent suicides, and windows are made shatterproof—the lever's very ordinariness allows it to pass unnoticed until it is too late. Its appearance marks a rare moment when the regime's surveillance apparatus is outwitted by the ingenuity of one of its captives, and the object itself becomes a symbol of the hidden capacities for defiance that persist even under total control.

Discovery and Dismantling

Moira, who has mechanical ability and used to fix her own car, dismantles the inside of one of the toilets in the washroom, extracting the long, thin, pointed lever that attaches the handle to the chain. The act requires knowledge of how the mechanism works, and Moira possesses that knowledge. The lever is not designed as a weapon; it is a functional part of a plumbing system, but in Moira's hands it becomes something else entirely. The toilets at the Center are old, with wooden stalls and exposed mechanisms, and the lever is accessible to anyone who knows how to remove the porcelain lid. After Moira's escape, the Aunts fit the toilets with chains to hold the tops on, making future disassembly much more difficult, and when the toilets overflow afterward it takes a long time to get them open, resulting in several floods.

The Escape

Moira calls Aunt Elizabeth into the washroom on the pretense that the toilet is overflowing—water is indeed running over the floor, along with disintegrating fecal matter. When Aunt Elizabeth bends over the back of the toilet to lift the porcelain lid, Moira jabs the sharp lever into her ribs from behind and threatens to puncture her lung. Aunt Elizabeth, a brave woman but not foolhardy, does as Moira says. Moira takes Aunt Elizabeth's cattle prod and whistle, forces her to undress, puts on the Aunt's brown habit herself, ties Aunt Elizabeth up with torn strips of the red veil behind the furnace, and marches straight out the front door with the bearing of someone who knows where she is going. The guards salute her and do not bother to check her pass, because who would affront an Aunt in that way?

Aftermath and Significance

The lever is never seen again after the escape, but its effects ripple through the Center. The Aunts are humiliated, their power shown to have a flaw: they can be shanghaied in toilets. The audacity of the act becomes a legend among the Handmaids, a secret source of laughter and hope. Moira herself is not recaptured for months, and when she is finally caught, she is sent not back to the Center but to Jezebels, the regime's secret brothel for high-ranking officials, because she is considered too dangerous to be allowed the privilege of returning to the Red Center. The lever, a piece of plumbing no one would have thought to guard, demonstrates that the regime's control, however thorough, can never anticipate every form of resistance. It is a reminder that the most effective weapons are often the ones that are already in plain sight.