Journal # 1

"There's no longer any hand lotion or face cream, not for us. Such things are considered vanities. We are containers, it's only the insides of our bodies that are important. The outside can become hard and wrinkled, for all they care, like the shell of a nut. This was a decree of the Wives, this absence of hand lotion. They don't want us to look attractive. For them, things are bad enough as it is." (Atwood 96)

This reveals that the society is very class based.  All women are oppressed. The wives are the highest class women and the most power they have is to deny lotion. The primary goal of the entire society is reproduction, much more so than creating equality or keeping personal rights. It is not acceptable to say things that disagree with the government, or to do something outside a person's prescribed routine. 

This relates to this portion of the book because Offred is oppressed, and Serena Joy hates her and does anything to make her life miserable. Serena Joy is only lashing out at Offred because she is mad at the government for putting a handmaid in her life. Offred is only there to have a baby, so no one really cares about her, and that is creating the conflict. This also relates to this part because Offred is remembering all the little freedoms she used to have in normal life, and her daughter and husband, envying her old life, compared with her new strict degrading life.