"Waste not, want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?"

In the above quote, from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the narrator contemplates a common cliche, which insinuates that if all available resources are being correctly utilized then a person should be lacking in nothing. The speaker, Offred, can acknowledge that she has a defined sense of purpose in life. However, despite her certainty in usefulness, she seems to be quite unhappy with her situation in life. Offred is a Handmaid, or designated child-bearer, in the Republic of Gilead, which is supposed to be a futuristic, Dystopic version of the United States after some big, unknown disaster. Due to this mysterious event, most of the nation's women are left barren, and the few who are still fertile are leached from their families and doomed to a sort of sexual slavery in which they can only earn their marginal freedom through pregnancy. 

In questioning "why [she] wants," Offred conveys that she possesses a functional quality that the wives of the men she sleeps with, Marthas (servants), and Aunts (her caretakers) lack, and that they envy her for. Although, because of the unpleasant, sexual demands required of women in her position, and the social and civil boundaries her responsibilities impose on her life, Offred suggests that she would rather have an existence of freedom and passion than a position of so-called honor. She "want[s]" because she cannot have friends, as most women either find her degrading, are superior to her, or too afraid for their own positions to risk companionship. She "want[s]" because she is not permitted to communicate in any way with the opposite sex, unless it is the Commander to which she has been assigned to have children for. She "want[s]" because she cannot eat what she pleases, go where she likes, wear clothes of her own choosing, or speak her own mind. In conclusion, Offred "want[s]" because, by her standards, she has no life of her own, and no control over her personal being.

What would you do if everything you knew and every value your society held were distorted in such a way as to render your life full of "want"? For instance, safety is important, and the gift of life is a beautiful thing, but when Offred's world became exceedingly paranoid, posting Guardians around every corner and rendering Handmaids incapable of any sort of activity that could inhibit any future, healthful pregnancies, the quality of her life became quite degraded. Think about what aspects of your life are important, such as protection or organization, and imagine how your world would change if these values were warped and amplified into something essentially dehumanizing. Consider the implications...