Significant quotation from The Handmaid's Tale and meaning

"He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower,he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity,for anyone at all, what an available temptation." pg.145


This quotation demonstrates a memory of Offred's. She remembers watching a documentary about a woman dealing with a guard. The memory emphasizes how the woman felt that her lover was not a cruel person, Offred begins to see this perspective within her own situation. As she spends more time with the commander, she starts to develop feelings for him which questions why he would seem like a decent character. Offred relates to the woman in the documentary because she finds herself dwelling on her emotions for the commander, he is the reason for constructing the unjust structure within the society they live in. In a sense the commander is a monster, he just is not a monster in Offred's eyes although he is to blame for the cruelty within the town of Gilead.