Reading chapter 33 of the Handmaid’s Tale left me with a complicated mix of sadness, in a way fascination and anger. Margaret Atwood’s portrayal of a society that celebrates female subjugation under the guise of holiness hit me deeply. What resonated most wasn’t just the obvious cruelty of Gilead’s rituals, but how normal and even “beautiful” they appear to those within the system. That distortion of morality, when oppression is dressed up as virtue, reminded me of many moments in my own life where conformity was rewarded more than compassion. In chapter 33, Aunt Lydia urges the Handmaids to view the ceremony as a “victory”. She tells them that “We must all be joyful for the good that is being done”, referring to the arranged marriages of very young girls to older men. Offred’s narration, however, strips away the holiness Aunt Lydia tries to impose, her tone is weary, observant and quietly resistant. She sees through the ceremony facade. “There is something indecent about the way they are so happy” she notes about the Wives, watching them smile and clap. This tension between what the regime demands people say and what they actually feel. Looking at their lives and how they lived, in comparison to mine, it was a difference but similar but more so towards my appearance and the way you looked and appeared to other adults, in which my grandparents cared most about. You had to appear, dress, act a certain way, you couldn’t wear certain things because it would be deemed as “improper” or “uncanny” in a way of unacceptable or strange. Appearance and the way you carried yourself mattered and a lot of it is shown in the Handmaids tale, based off of the roles you had to play in society, what you had to do, instead of what you wanted to do, in both, there wasn’t an option, but it was a demand. Reading about the young brides in chapter 33, dressed in white, and paraded as symbols of virtue, I thought about those moments in my past when I felt defined more by what I shouldn’t do than what I could do. Atwood’s description, “They are being given to men who have served the state” perfectly captures that transfer of ownership. It made me realize how easily language can normalize control. Another moment that “resonated” with me was Janine’s behavior. Once celebrated for her successful childbirth, she now appears detached and unstable. Offred describes her as “smiling vacantly” and speaking nonsense, her mind clearly fractured by the trauma she endured. Another moment shown, Offred and Ofglen’s whispered exchange during the ceremony also struck a personal chord. Their small act of connection felt quietly revolutionary. In a world where even speech is dangerous, that moment of shared recognition, the simple acknowledgment that they both see the truth felt profound. It reminded me of times I’ve found solidarity in silence: glancing at a friend across a room during an uncomfortable moment, or sharing a private joke in a setting where we had to act “proper.” Those tiny acts of rebellion remind me that resistance doesn’t always look like protest, sometimes it’s just the courage to whisper when everyone else stays quiet. The chapter also made me think about how rituals, whether religious or social, can both comfort and constrain. The Prayvaganza is meant to unify, but it erases individuality. In contrast, I’ve experienced rituals like weddings, graduations, or even shared meals that bring people together in joy and equality. Atwood’s ceremony feels hollow because it’s built on fear, not faith. That distinction helped me reflect on the kind of community I want to be part of: one that values questioning and compassion over blind conformity. Ultimately, my reaction to Chapter 33 comes from recognizing how fragile freedom can be. Gilead’s world doesn’t feel entirely fictional, it’s an exaggerated version of patterns I’ve seen in real life, how societies justify inequality, how trauma hides behind ceremony, and how women are taught to celebrate their own limitations. Offred’s quiet awareness, her ability to observe without completely surrendering, feels like an act of hope. I connect to that deeply. Like her, I’ve learned that survival sometimes means holding on to the smallest sparks of truth, even when you can’t say them out loud and this goes for anything and everything. Atwood doesn’t just critique patriarchy in this chapter, she exposes how easily people adapt to it, even celebrate it. That realization unsettled me, but it also strengthened my resolve to question the systems I live in. When Aunt Lydia praises the ceremony as sacred, and Offred internally recoils, I felt that recoil too not just as a reader, but as someone who has learned that questioning authority is often the first step toward freedom.

When I read “The Handmaid’s Tale”, I keep coming back to how deeply unsettling it is to witness the way Gilead controls women’s bodies through what they would consider ritual. When I read chapter 16, pages 93-95, I felt a strong wave of discomfort, not only what happened in the Ceremony itself, but the way it was presented. As something normalized, ritualized, and even sanctified. The theme that struck me most powerfully while reading this chapter was the “Control of women’s bodies through ritualized violence”, In other words, Dehumanization. Atwood shows how intimacy and sexuality can be stripped away and replaced with mechanical obedience, and as a reader, I found myself deeply unsettled by how ordinary the characters treated it. That unease is, I think, the point I am meant to feel is the wrongness, even as the people within Gilead act as if it were normal.

The Ceremony is described with chilling simplicity. Offred lies on her back, her head is resting on Serena Joy’s lap, while the commander performs his duty. The scene is clinical, almost boring in its lack of passion. Offred acting in a way of a surrogate for the commander’s wife and himself. It is not an act of love, but an act of ownership. The commander’s position gives him power, Serena Joy’s presence is a reminder that Offred is nothing more than a Surrogate, as I stated briefly, an act of ownership and not love but Offred herself is reduced to a Vessel. What brings more discomfort to me as I read is how ritual transforms an act of violence into something the Society can call holy. Reading pages 93-94, I couldn’t stop thinking about how this ritual functions as a disguise. The Ceremony is rape, but because it has been codified into a monthly event, because it is framed as duty, because it is wrapped in the language of religion, it becomes “normal”. The normalization is what unsettles me the most. It’s one thing to imagine violence happening in secret but it’s another to imagine a whole society sitting quietly in it, repeating it and believing it to be righteous. It made me think, how much wrong can we overlook if it is dressed up as tradition?

What also makes this section uncomfortable was Offred “voice”. She doesn’t describe the event with anger or open horror. Instead, pages 94-95, she detaches herself, narrating in short, almost factual sentences. At first, I wanted her to feel a sense of rage and wrongfulness or to even resist, but then I realized that her detachment is her survival. She has no choice but to endure, and her mind protects her from pulling away. This forced me to confront the reality of her lack of power. It also makes me think of how people under oppressive systems often have to distance themselves from their own experience just to survive because they lack control, control of themselves, their bodies.

Another part of this chapter that made me feel uneasy is that Serena was involved, the commander’s wife. She sits behind offred as this “ritual” occurs, holding her hands, her body arranged to mimic a mother embracing a child. On the surface, this is supposed to show solidarity, but I felt it as a layer of cruelty. Serena Joy’s touch does not comfort, it reinforces Offred’s role as property. It is disturbing to see one woman helping to enforce the system against another, and it reminded me of how power can divide women against each other instead of uniting them.

The pages around these scenes also force me to think about intimacy itself. Offred remembers her past life with Luke, the warmth and passion they once shared. Those memories are painful for her, but also for me as a reader, because they highlight what has been stolen. Knowing what real intimacy can feel like makes the ceremony even colder. This contrast brought me sharp discomfort. The idea that a government could completely erase personal freedom that even love becomes a crime. What lingers most is the realization that this ritual is not an isolated act but part of a system. This is not about one commander, one wife, or one Handmaid. It is about the entire structure of Gilead, a structure that can make something so obviously brutal feel ordinary. That, more than anything, is what makes it concerning to read. Atwood reminds me that oppression doesn’t always come as open violence. Something it comes dressed as tradition, as duty, as ritual and once people accept that disguise, they stop questioning it. Laws that limit women’s autonomy, practices that disguise control as morality, and traditions that tell people their bodies are not their own. Atwood’s writing is disturbing because it feels too close to reality. After reading chapter 16, pages 93-95, forces me to see how ritual can normalize violence, how language can mask cruelty, and how easily people can adapt to its injustice if it is repeated often enough.