When the Commander asks Offred to play a game of scrabble, she is reluctant. "Now of course it's something dangerous. Now it's forbidden, for us. Now it's dangerous. [...] Now it's desirable" (Atwood 138). Scrabble is a symbol of knowledge in the novel. Atwood uses it to express the reluctance in Offred, where she wants to gain knowledge but knows its dangerous power. Knowledge has become desirable because it is forbidden to them, a temptation that is refrained because of the amount of fear the society has created. This refrainment (wc?) is what oppresses the society. The government just had to create fear, and the rest fell into place.

As Offred plays scrabble with the Commander, she finds it hard to piece together words. "It was like trying to walk without crutches" (Atwood 156). Offred feared her new society so much that she had completely blocked away any prior knowledge that she had before, making it harder for her to play the game. She knew that she was capable of spelling the words correctly, but because she had not used the words in so long, she could not remember. Atwood compares this to a broken leg, where a person is knows how to walk, but needs aid in relearning the skill. This simile shows how much the fear of the society has oppressed any prior knowledge, where knowledge is broken apart so much that it needs to be mended and relearned.