Rape Fantasies

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content and rape. 

The bridge game that Estelle and her coworkers are playing is symbolic of both community and competition. The women play the card game during their lunch hour in the office breakroom, “the way [they] always do” (164). The game is thus a ritual that brings the women together and allows them to share space and to decompress in the middle of their workday. It offers opportunities for connection and communal sharing. However, bridge is also a game that requires two teams to compete against each other. The same dynamic happens in the women’s conversation. They are allegedly sharing their rape fantasies in a “safe space,” but they end up challenging each other’s fantasies or minimizing how they define rape, sex, pleasure, and violence. They never end up finishing the game (the lunch ends “with one bridge game shot to hell”), which is also true of their conversation about rape fantasies, as not all of the women get a chance to share (167). Atwood uses the game to show how women are societally pitted against each other. When they’re together, they have the opportunity to connect and communicate, but they often live into societal expectations of them—vying for attention or superiority instead of connecting over their shared experiences.