The Handmaid’s Tale: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

As Offred waits in her room, she thinks about the household’s previous Handmaid. When she first arrived, she began her slow examination of every nook and cranny in the room, and found evidence of its previous resident. Offred gets sidetracked into another memory: she remembers looking hastily through hotel rooms, when she used to meet up with Luke when he was still married to his first wife. She remembers her nervousness and confusion about his feelings and about the affair. She didn’t appreciate the happiness she had. She misses the carelessness and independence of staying in hotels.

Offred returns to her main memory of examining her bedroom when she arrived at the house. She explored every tiny detail, including mattress stains that suggested old lovers, and felt faint, thinking of Luke. On the third day after her arrival, she looked at the cupboard, where there were still hooks, allowing the potential of self-harm. In the darkest corner, someone wrote “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.”

Though Offred doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase, suspecting it might be Latin, she is happy imagining the previous Handmaid who sent her the message, and happy to have received it. She thinks of Moira’s energy and freckles, and imagines that the previous Handmaid must have had freckles too. Offred flashes back to another memory, when she asked Rita about the previous Handmaid, and pretended to know her, mentioning her freckles. Rita refused to explain why that Handmaid left.