"But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power perhaps, the greatest.
Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing."(134-135)
It almost seems as though when Offred is saying this she is trying to define what words like forgiveness, power, and control mean in the day and age she is in. They have different context and hold different bearings in the society she is in. Now all of these words are shown in non-verbal ways, through physical cues because she is not supposed to be speaking unless under certain terms. In this case body language means so much more and it is obvious who holds power or control by their body language.
Offred says "Maybe none of this is about control", "this" being life. She then goes on to basically elaborate what control means to her. In her perspective control is a very physical thing. Control means physical ownership and even determining the physical fate of a person. When she says "even as far as death" that struck me as something that came from a personal place, as if she had an experience that would show her that having control means that you can determine whether or not a person dies. Again she connotes that control or power is largely who owns the physically body of another human being and the person not in power has to lie down and give themselves away. Now I think she is reshaping her ideas of these words because if the days before Gilead were anything like modern day United States, power and control were more unspoken traits. Offred says that it's possible that life isn't all about control and power but the way that she describes power, control, and forgiveness, it seems as though these are all personal encounters that she has had that have defined her definition of power.