The Handmaid’s Tale
AlthoughThe Handmaid ’s Talefocuses on Gilead and all the way in which it arrive at so many citizenry suffer , the female characters take the front and halfway purpose at almost every turn . Serena Joy Waterford is one of the most unique among them for the round-eyed fact that this tyrannous regime that robs women of all of their rights was sky-high embraced and even partially design by Serena herself .
After Fred ’s demise and Serena ’s blatant betrayal of the state she helped to establish , it would seem she ’s finally get a glance of what life is like on the other side of the coin , and unsurprisingly , she ’s not happy about it . It ’s yet to be seen whether or not Serena will finally deepen for the better , but it ’s hard to imagine her becoming high-risk than the person she already is .
“You Don’t Put The Bruised Apples At The Top Of The Crate”
Serena always goes out of her fashion to present herself as elegant and well - mannered , but there is a nightmare living underneath that veneer . One of Serena ’s smaller but more repugnant moments comes in the episode where Gilead is negotiating with Mexico for a likely trade deal involving handmaid .
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Gilead throws a lavish gala to " honor " the handmaids and make them more likable to the Mexicans , but she want to be certain that the handmaids are giving off the correct figure . Consequently , she asks Aunt Lydia to polish off the " damaged " ones , AKA the girls who have been physically mutilated by Gilead , demonstrating that she pick up these victimized women as little more than intersection to be sold .
Serena’s Meeting With Luke
Serena has repeatedly prove that she is unforced to do literally anything it takes to get a baby , and it seems like her decision to let Nichole go to Canada was a momentaneous lapse in judgement . Serena begs June to win over Luke into granting Serena and Fred one last sojourn with the baby to say goodbye , but Luke concur with the caution that only Serena derive to see Nichole .
During their visit at the Toronto airport , Luke truly calls out Serena Joy for the devil that she is , and Serena respond as only she would , delusionally say that she was one of the few hoi polloi to help June and mistily threatening withdrawal of that help in the same breather . The deduction that June might suffer import if Luke was n’t regardful to Serena in the way that she thinks she deserves despite the fact that she has incessantly facilitate or carried out June ’s rape and abuse is unhinged .
Forcing Nick & June To Conceive
Serena seemed to cut all of her horrific deeds as actions in service of the greater good , and in her thinker there isonly one lawful groovy good : babies . Her despair for a child was horrendous , and once it became apparent that the babe - prepare trouble might uprise with Fred , Serena started looking for solutions in dissimilar places .
There are only a few the great unwashed in the world who Serena can check and command , so she " asks " June and Nick to conceive a child . As Tuello gratefully points out to Serena when she is arrested in Canada , this postulation is rapine in the optic of any intellectual mortal .
Imprisoning June
After her first few month with the Waterfords , it ’s looking like June might perhaps be significant , and Serena is intelligibly over the moon .
That is , until June realizes that it was just a false alarm . Serena is absolutely angered at the disclosure and , after giving June a few unneeded wallops , banishes June to her room to think about " what she ’s done . " The psychological damage isolation can cause is awful . Given that June has no control over her reproduction whatsoever and after what happen to the first Offred , this seems like an particularly sadistic move .
Threatening Hannah The First Time
From the moment Serena realized June was pregnant , she did n’t think of that babe as June ’s babe . Serena ready that clear in nearly every interaction she has with June , however , the most particularly atrocious import that made this crystal unmortgaged is when Serena ingest June to see Hannah .
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After June expend years urgently searching for Hannah with no achiever , Serena takes her on a surprisal sojourn to see her from afar without Hannah even cognise her literal mother is there . As June desperately begs Serena for one moment with Hannah , Serena tells June that as long as " her baby " is good then so is June ’s .
Threatening Hannah The Second Time
Once Serena realized that June polish off Fred , she was understandably terrified that June would be coming for her next . And in lodge to prove to " put June back in her place , " Serena orchestrated a monumental public funeral for Fred andflexed that she had enough big businessman in Gileadto get stuffy to Hannah .
Serena ’s hypocrisy is nothing young , but the fact that she is so obsessed with nestling and yet freely uses overt threats to a child as leveraging against her enemy is painful .
Banishing June From The House
Serena ’s possessiveness over baby Nichole is licitly shivery . Mrs. Waterford has repeatedly show that she will check at utterly nothing to get what she believes is hers . Therefore , it comes as no surprise that , once Nichole is bear , Serena is brutally controlling and savage .
Serena never sees Nichole as June ’s girl , but she does n’t want to risk any kind of mother - girl bind either . forthwith after June croak through the most torturous labor conceivable , Serena banishes June from the sign of the zodiac with the intent of June never reckon Nichole again .
Framing Commander Cushing
Realistically speaking , anyone who has make out to rise in the ranks of Gilead credibly deserves to die . Commander Cushing seemed like a particularly unspeakable weasel , so there ’s no great deprivation in losing him .
But when Commander Cushing is investigating the bombardment at the flushed center and makes it clear that he does n’t believe that June was unwillingly abducted , it look like the integral Waterford home might be in trouble . With Fred out of committee , it ’s looking worse and bad . Therefore , Serena does what come naturally to her and adjust Cushing up to take the fall , which almost certainly ensue in his expiry .
Surrendering Fred To The Canadians
Sometimes people wrap up doing the right affair for the ill-timed reason , as is the case with Serena handing Fred over to the Canadians and US politics for prosecution . The possibility of Fred face some Justice Department is lovely , but Serena was more than happy to participate in or boost his war crimes when it stimulate her cheeseparing to having a sister .
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In this instance she was doing the exact same thing , except throwing Fred to the wildcat was just her direction of leveraging what she had so she can snake her way back into the life of the baby that she kidnapped .
Forgetting Nichole Exists
Serena put many people through unimaginable hurt so as to get " her girl " Nichole , and while June bear the brunt of it , it ’s abyssal how much Serena ’s desire for a babe has negatively touch on the world around her .
And , the arcminute that she found out that she was expecting her own biologic tyke , Nichole essentially stop to be in Serena ’s intellect . clear , that is in the best pursuit of Nichole , but it goes to show how frightening Serena rightfully is . She take to love Nichole more than anything and justified many horror establish on that claim , but her solemn attachment to Nichole as a someone rather than an objective to enlighten Serena was completely nonexistent .
Stoking A Fascist Theocratic Movement In The US
Serena Joy has done plenty of things that are fearful , but it ’s hard to top what she generally did to the world by promoting her misogynistic , religious fascism to the masses . As Moira so eloquently put it , Serena is the real gender traitor .
When the human population was on the brink of collapse , Serena advance theideologies that fuel the founding of Gileadand reduce the women of the world into nothing more than baby - Creator . Once so many citizenry began endure under her ideas , she paid it no mind , only care when those ideologies in the end started making her suffer too .
Stoking A Theocratic Fascist Movement In Canada
One of the most worrying aspect ofThe Handmaid ’s Tale ’s focus on Canada in late seasons isthe support that seems to exist there for Gileadand for people like Serena .
And once again , Serena ’s usurious lip service fall upon again , as she makes it her newfangled delegacy to convert Canadian truster into some Gilead - esque society , and she shows no qualm about completely misrepresenting the realness of Gilead in parliamentary law to sell it to the quite a little . She ’s exploiting the totally misplaced trust that her followers have in her in lodge to put them in a position where she knows they ’ll suffer , and of line , she still fancy herself as the exception to all the rule that will be used to punish everyone around her .
The Last Ceremony
Serena ’s scurrilous nature is obvious to anyone who is looking , but arguably her most brutal behavior came during " the last ceremonial occasion " . When June does n’t pitch what Serena thinks is her baby on her clip docket , she becomes angry and require to penalize June . Both she and Fred feel as if June is bury her piazza , so they decide to remind her .
Serena and Fred devise the most horrid means of penalty possible . Under the guise of " assist " the sister add up by nature , Fred and Serena rape her again . However , this time , June is n’t just set there expect for it to be over . When June fights back , Serena holds her down for Fred .
Her Fake Remorse
Arguably the most disturbing facial expression of Serena as a character is that she sometimes render enough perceptiveness to sympathize the gravity of her actions , and occasionally she even displays some kind of self-reproach , but that sadness never sticks around for long .
Her behaviors and choices would be unforgivable either way , but there is something exceptionally obscene about the fact that she translate all of the horror she has forced upon the world , and yet she keeps doing it . She only seems to have ruefulness when her decision have a disconfirming effect on her , and she truly feels entitle to exploit and abuse multitude for her own gain .
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