Popular Culture Review 32.1
after he learned that they were conscious ( and could therefore remember and feel any actions the Guests visited upon them ), this revelation is devastating to Dolores even as Ford reminds her ( and the viewers ) that the act was not of her own volition . Arnold forced her to do it . This moment is then followed by another bit of clever cinematic ( and narrative ) theater : viewers see through flashback again that Dolores has not been meeting with Bernard in this space , all those times . She was instead only speaking with herself , having the kinds of internal debate and dialogue readers see in the narratives of Douglass and Jacobs . Viewers are subjected to a scene with two Doloreses : one in her traditional blue dress ; the other in her Pariah pants complete with the Man in Black ’ s stab wound . In their final conversation with each other , the two remark , “ And now I finally understand what you were trying to tell me . The thing you ’ ve wanted since that very first day . To confront after this long and vivid nightmare myself and who I must become ” (“ The Bicameral Mind ” 1:20:45-1:21:32 ). Like Douglass , Dolores recognizes her agency and becomes an autonomous being capable of independent action .
In The Handmaid ’ s Tale , June ’ s realization of her agency relies on work done by Moira . But her friend ’ s initial complacency threatens to derail June ’ s own work at resistance and rebellion in Gilead . This leads to one of two scenes in the first season where a white woman lectures a woman of color about her enslaved position , optics that look increasingly problematic as the season works towards its conclusion . 2 After returning to Jezebel ’ s with Waterford , June attempts to
2 The first occurs earlier , in the episode “ A Woman ’ s Place ,” when June has a moment alone with the female ambassador of Mexico and berates her for not doing anything about June ’ s enslaved position . It ’ s telling that this critique isn ’ t directly levied against any of the white men and women of Gilead by June in this season .
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