Offred first meets Serena as the “Commander’s Wife,” only discovering her real name after realising that she had once been a famous singer she’d seen on TV. She has authority over all the women of the household, and spends her free time undertaking domestic activities such as knitting and gardening. The reader learns midway through the novel that Serena once advocated for women to stay at home, preaching for traditional gender roles and values, Offred saying, “her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home.” It is therefore rather ironic that she eventually found herself in the exact situation she once advocated for, having been stripped of her freedom of speech and movement, and finding herself unhappy and resentful.
