How Does Margaret Atwood Portray the Commander as a Complex Character in The Handmaid’s Tale?
Margaret Atwood portrays the Commander as a complex character in The Handmaid’s Tale through his contradictory behaviors, emotional vulnerabilities, and multifaceted motivations that challenge simple categorization as purely oppressor or victim. The Commander embodies the paradox of being both an architect of Gilead’s totalitarian regime and a lonely individual seeking genuine human connection, revealing how power corrupts while simultaneously exposing the psychological costs of authoritarianism. Atwood develops this complexity through his clandestine relationship with Offred, his nostalgic longing for pre-Gilead society, his intellectual pursuits that contradict Gilead’s laws, and his inability to recognize the full extent of his complicity in systemic oppression (Atwood, 1985).
Understanding the Commander’s Role in Gilead’s Power Structure
What Position Does the Commander Hold in Gilead’s Hierarchy?
The Commander occupies a position of significant authority within Gilead’s theocratic government, functioning as one of the regime’s founding members and high-ranking officials who designed and implemented the oppressive social structure. His elevated status grants him privileges unavailable to most citizens, including access to forbidden materials, participation in elite social clubs, and ownership of a Handmaid for reproductive purposes. Atwood establishes his power through physical markers in his household, where he possesses a private study filled with banned books and artifacts from the pre-Gilead world, symbolizing both his authority and his exemption from the very rules he helped create (Atwood, 1985). The Commander’s position represents what scholars identify as the “patriarchal elite” in dystopian literature, individuals who benefit most from oppressive systems while remaining insulated from their harshest consequences (Tolan, 2007).
The complexity of the Commander’s role emerges through Atwood’s revelation that those who create totalitarian systems are not necessarily ideological zealots but often pragmatic individuals motivated by personal frustration with previous social arrangements. Through Offred’s observations during their secret meetings, readers learn that the Commander participated in Gilead’s formation partly due to dissatisfaction with pre-Gilead gender dynamics, where he felt women were indifferent to male attention and traditional courtship rituals had diminished (Atwood, 1985). This motivation exposes a deeply troubling aspect of his character: his willingness to strip away women’s fundamental rights and autonomy to restore what he perceived as more satisfying power dynamics. Atwood demonstrates how personal grievances and nostalgic yearnings for patriarchal dominance can fuel participation in systemic oppression, complicating simplistic narratives about evil dictators and revealing how ordinary dissatisfactions can escalate into extraordinary cruelty when given institutional power.
How Does the Commander’s Relationship with Offred Reveal His Contradictions?
Why Does the Commander Seek Companionship Beyond Gilead’s Prescribed Interactions?
The Commander’s initiation of an illegal relationship with Offred fundamentally contradicts his public role as Gilead’s enforcer, exposing his profound loneliness and need for intellectual and emotional connection that the regime he created cannot fulfill. Despite designing a system that reduces women to biological functions and prohibits genuine intimacy between social classes, the Commander secretly invites Offred to his study for evenings of Scrabble, conversation, and reading—all activities that violate Gilead’s strict codes (Atwood, 1985). This behavior reveals what literary critics describe as the “dictator’s dilemma,” wherein authoritarian leaders create systems that ultimately isolate them from authentic human relationships, leaving them craving the very connections their regimes have destroyed (Howells, 2006). The Commander’s desire for companionship demonstrates that even architects of oppression experience the dehumanizing effects of the systems they construct, though with far less severe consequences than their victims.
Atwood develops this contradiction further by showing how the Commander fundamentally misunderstands the nature of their relationship, viewing it as mutually beneficial rather than recognizing the inherent coercion embedded in their power differential. He genuinely believes he is offering Offred gifts and privileges, failing to comprehend that she cannot freely consent to interactions with someone who holds absolute power over her survival and well-being. When he takes her to Jezebel’s, the underground club where women are prostituted for elite men’s entertainment, he expects her gratitude and seems hurt by her lack of enthusiasm (Atwood, 1985). This self-deception illustrates Atwood’s insight into how power blinds oppressors to their own violence. The Commander’s inability to recognize that his “kindness” occurs within a context of total domination reveals the psychological dimensions of authoritarianism, where those in power rationalize their actions through self-serving narratives that obscure their complicity in suffering (Ketterer, 1989).
What Does the Commander’s Nostalgia Reveal About His Character?
The Commander’s nostalgia for pre-Gilead society introduces another layer of complexity, as he simultaneously mourns aspects of the world he helped destroy while defending the necessity of its destruction. During their conversations, he shares magazines, makeup, and other forbidden items with Offred, indulging in memories of a time when such things were commonplace and women had access to diverse forms of self-expression (Atwood, 1985). This nostalgic behavior seems contradictory for someone who actively participated in eliminating women’s freedoms, yet it reveals the selective nature of authoritarian thinking, where leaders cherry-pick which elements of previous eras to preserve for themselves while denying these same pleasures to others. Atwood uses this characteristic to demonstrate how totalitarian systems often emerge not from a complete rejection of the past but from an attempt to preserve certain privileges for an elite class while restructuring society to consolidate their power.
The Commander’s nostalgia also exposes his fundamental inability to recognize the connection between the freedoms he misses and the rights he has stripped away from others. He laments the loss of genuine desire and authentic relationships in Gilead, telling Offred that in the old world, women’s freedom made their attention more valuable, yet he fails to understand that creating a system based on forced reproduction has eliminated the possibility of genuine desire entirely (Atwood, 1985). This cognitive dissonance illustrates what scholars identify as the “oppressor’s paradox,” wherein those who create systems of domination often feel victimized by the loss of authentic connection that such systems inevitably produce (Staels, 2005). Atwood’s portrayal suggests that the Commander, like many authoritarians, wants the benefits of both worlds—the power and control of Gilead alongside the authentic human connections possible only in systems that respect individual autonomy—revealing a profound moral and intellectual failure at the heart of his character.
How Does Atwood Use the Commander to Critique Patriarchal Power?
What Does the Commander’s Banality Reveal About Systemic Oppression?
Atwood’s most striking characterization choice involves portraying the Commander not as a monster but as an ordinary, even mundane individual, thereby illustrating how systemic oppression relies on the participation of unremarkable people rather than exceptional villains. The Commander emerges through Offred’s observations as somewhat awkward, emotionally needy, and intellectually mediocre despite his elevated position—he plays Scrabble like a normal person, makes small talk, and exhibits the insecurities of an aging man seeking validation (Atwood, 1985). This ordinariness echoes Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil,” which argues that extraordinary atrocities are often committed not by fanatics but by ordinary individuals participating in bureaucratic systems without fully confronting the moral implications of their actions (Arendt, 1963). By making the Commander unremarkable, Atwood forces readers to confront the uncomfortable reality that oppressive systems do not require exceptional cruelty to function, only the compliance and self-interest of average people willing to prioritize their comfort over others’ freedom.
This portrayal serves a crucial thematic function by demonstrating that patriarchal oppression does not stem from inherent masculine evil but from social structures that reward men for maintaining gender hierarchies even when individual men might not be particularly invested in domination. The Commander did not create Gilead out of sadistic impulses but rather from a combination of sexual frustration, religious justification, and environmental crisis—motivations that, while deeply problematic, feel disturbingly plausible rather than extraordinarily evil (Atwood, 1985). Atwood suggests through this characterization that the greatest threat to gender equality comes not from cartoonish villains but from ordinary men who benefit from patriarchal arrangements and therefore lack sufficient motivation to dismantle them, even when they can see the system’s failures. This insight remains particularly relevant for understanding contemporary gender dynamics, where systemic inequality persists not through overt hostility but through the accumulated decisions of individuals who prioritize their own comfort and advantage over justice (Beauvoir, 1949).
How Does the Commander’s Privilege Prevent Self-Awareness?
The Commander’s inability to fully comprehend his own moral culpability represents a critical aspect of Atwood’s characterization, illustrating how privilege creates cognitive barriers that prevent those in power from recognizing the violence they perpetrate. Throughout his interactions with Offred, the Commander demonstrates a troubling lack of awareness regarding the horror of her situation, treating their meetings as pleasant diversions rather than acknowledging that she is his sexual slave without legal rights or bodily autonomy (Atwood, 1985). His privilege insulates him from experiencing Gilead’s brutality firsthand, allowing him to focus on the regime’s theoretical justifications while remaining disconnected from its practical consequences. This dynamic reflects what sociologists term “structural blindness,” wherein individuals occupying dominant social positions develop cognitive frameworks that naturalize inequality and obscure their own role in maintaining oppressive systems (Bonilla-Silva, 2006).
Atwood demonstrates this limited self-awareness through the Commander’s genuine surprise when aspects of Gilead’s cruelty are brought to his attention, suggesting that he has successfully compartmentalized his role in creating the system from its actual operation. When discussing Gilead’s purposes, he focuses on abstract concepts like restoring meaning to sexuality and protecting women from exploitation, revealing his capacity to intellectualize oppression in ways that divorce it from lived reality (Atwood, 1985). This self-deception functions as a psychological defense mechanism that allows him to maintain a positive self-image despite his participation in atrocity. Atwood’s portrayal suggests that those who benefit most from oppressive systems often develop sophisticated mental frameworks to justify their privilege, transforming their complicity into benevolence through narratives that emphasize their good intentions while minimizing their victims’ suffering. This characterization offers a sobering reminder that systemic change requires not only policy reforms but also the difficult psychological work of confronting how privilege distorts perception and enables ongoing participation in injustice.
What Literary Techniques Does Atwood Use to Develop the Commander’s Complexity?
How Does Limited Perspective Shape Reader Understanding?
Atwood’s decision to present the Commander entirely through Offred’s first-person narration creates deliberate ambiguity that enhances his complexity while forcing readers to actively interpret his motivations and character. Readers never access the Commander’s internal thoughts directly; instead, they must piece together his psychology from his actions, words, and Offred’s necessarily limited and biased interpretations (Atwood, 1985). This narrative strategy prevents simple moral judgments by reminding readers that understanding emerges from incomplete information and subjective interpretation. The limited perspective mirrors the epistemic challenges inherent in understanding people in positions of power, who often curate their public personas carefully while hiding their private thoughts and motivations. Atwood’s technique reflects postmodern skepticism about objective truth and stable character, suggesting that personality itself may be less fixed than situational, shaped by context and power dynamics rather than essential qualities (Hutcheon, 1988).
Furthermore, Offred’s perspective as someone who depends on the Commander for survival introduces questions about reliability that complicate reader understanding. Her interpretations of his behavior may be colored by her need to see him as more human and sympathetic to make her situation psychologically bearable, or alternatively, her trauma may prevent her from recognizing moments of genuine feeling he experiences (Atwood, 1985). This ambiguity serves Atwood’s thematic purposes by illustrating how oppressive relationships distort perception on both sides—victims must develop survival strategies that may include strategic misinterpretation, while oppressors’ self-justifications prevent accurate self-assessment. The narrative structure thus reinforces the novel’s exploration of how power corrupts not only morally but epistemologically, making genuine understanding between unequal parties nearly impossible.
What Role Does Symbolic Characterization Play?
Atwood employs symbolic characterization to position the Commander as a representative figure embodying larger themes about patriarchy, power, and the allure of authoritarianism. His personal library, filled with forbidden texts and artifacts, symbolizes the hypocrisy of authoritarian regimes that exempt their leaders from the restrictions imposed on others (Atwood, 1985). The Scrabble games they play represent the Commander’s desire to return to pre-Gilead social rituals while maintaining the power structure that makes such games impossible as genuine leisure activities—for Offred, even Scrabble is labor performed under coercion. These symbolic elements transform the Commander from a purely individual character into a representation of systemic forces, illustrating how personal relationships under totalitarianism become microcosms of larger political dynamics.
Additionally, Atwood uses the Commander to symbolize the paternalistic justifications that often accompany oppressive systems, particularly those targeting women. His expressed concern for women’s safety and his belief that Gilead protects women from the exploitation they faced previously mirrors historical and contemporary rhetoric used to justify restricting women’s autonomy (Atwood, 1985). By embodying this paternalistic logic, the Commander becomes a vehicle for Atwood’s critique of how oppression disguises itself as protection, and how those in power convince themselves their domination serves their victims’ interests. This symbolic function allows Atwood to address not just the specific horrors of Gilead but the broader patterns of patriarchal thinking that persist across different cultural and historical contexts (Feuer, 2003).
Conclusion: Why Understanding the Commander’s Complexity Matters
Margaret Atwood’s nuanced portrayal of the Commander serves as a warning against simplistic understandings of oppression that locate evil in exceptional individuals rather than ordinary people participating in unjust systems. By creating a character who is simultaneously perpetrator and product of the regime he helped create, Atwood illuminates the psychological mechanisms that enable systemic violence: privilege-induced blindness, self-serving rationalization, and the capacity of average people to commit extraordinary harm when cultural and institutional structures reward such behavior. The Commander’s complexity forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about how oppression functions—not through cartoon villains but through the accumulated choices of individuals who prioritize their own comfort, nostalgia, and power over others’ fundamental rights.
Understanding the Commander as a complex character remains essential for contemporary readers navigating societies where gender-based oppression persists in varied forms. His characterization demonstrates that dismantling patriarchal systems requires more than removing individual bad actors; it demands fundamental restructuring of institutions and cultural narratives that enable ordinary people to participate in extraordinary injustice while maintaining positive self-concepts. Atwood’s literary achievement lies in creating a character who is neither fully sympathetic nor completely monstrous, reflecting the troubling reality that most oppression is enacted by people who see themselves as reasonable, even benevolent, rather than cruel. This insight challenges readers to examine their own complicity in systemic injustices and to recognize that moral complexity does not excuse participation in oppression but rather illuminates the psychological and social work required to create genuinely just societies.
References
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