But the Handmaids are pawns in this story, and this scene shows how they are manipulated by the constant threat of death – or worse.

Towards the end of the novel, the Handmaids are tricked into thinking that one of the Guardians is a rapist. Jezebel’s shouldn’t exist but, just as the Handmaids have their secret Mayday network, so the Commanders have their illicit entertainment and, as their relationship develops, Commander Waterford decides to show Offred this hidden world. In Gilead, sex is purely functional, not for pleasure. The illustrations are illustrations that are perfect in describing the horror of the new world the heroine. The words that appear on the board are ripe with significance. The novel as this graphic novel does ends abruptly. (In the second series of the TV Serena Joy has her little finger cut off for daring to read from the Bible.) But Commander Waterford invites Offred into his study to play Scrabble and it becomes not just a game of words but a game of power. The close-ups of their faces say so much here. As in the novel and the TV series, Nault doesn’t shy away from the brutality of the scene. This is the central moment in the lives of Gilead’s Commanders, their Wives and the Handmaids. Here, Offred discovers the message scratched into the wall by her predecessor and begins to hope. This phrase has become synonymous with The Handmaid’s Tale and female resistance. Like Atwood, Nault portrays her as an older woman, where in the TV series Yvonne Strahovsky shows her as more of a contemporary of Offred’s. In their first meeting, Serena Joy is determined to show Offred who is in charge. Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey made the list of 11 banned titles alongside The Bluest Eye and a graphic novel version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The beds stretch as far as the eye can see as the Aunts parade between them, keeping watch over the helpless and horror-stricken new Handmaids.

The handmaid's tale graphic novel