Balram In The Handmaid's Tale

The largest impediment to Balram getting out of the darkness is his family, holding him back. When Balram return to Laxmangarh, he visits his family, who invite him home and serve him a special meal of curried chicken. During dinner Kusum tries to get Balram to marry. Balram recalls, ““Granny,” I said, looking at the large piece of red, curried meat, “give me some more time. I’m not ready to be married.” Her jaw dropped. “What do you mean, not yet? You’ll do what we want.””(73) In this quote Kusum is shocked and taken aback when Balram says he does not want to get married. She says to him “You’ll do what we want”. By saying this with such force Kusum is acting as if she owns Balram and has control over him. By forcing him into a marriage Kusum is

Balram recalls, “They [the women] hid behind the door, and as soon as the men walked in, they pounced, like wildcats on a slab of flesh. There was fighting and wailing and shrieking … "I survived the city, but I couldn't survive the women in my home," he would say, sunk into a corner of the room. The women would feed him after they fed the buffalo.” (22) Here, Balram is recalling how the women in his family have so much power, and are therefore able to force the men to give up all of their wages to them. Even though it was the men who earned this money in the light, almost all of it was lost to their families in the darkness. Because Balram experienced this as a child he is now aware that if he returns to Laxmangarh he will lose all of his savings, and end up like his father. Transition To Balram, getting out of the darkness means that he is an independent person without connections to the darkness, living in a city. To do this he must have enough money to buy himself a home, and afford living in a city. The only way to get out of this cycle is to disconnect himself from his family, because they are the ones blocking his path to the light, out of the