Final answer:
In 'The Handmaid's Tale', hotel rooms symbolize the narrator's past freedoms and the current oppression and commodification of women within the theocratic society of Gilead.
Step-by-step explanation:
In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, hotel rooms have come to represent a place of painful memories and lost freedoms for the narrator. They symbolize the commodification of women's bodies and the confinement of individuality in the theocratic society of Gilead. The rooms are emblematic of the past life, the pre-Gilead world where the narrator once experienced autonomy and human connection as opposed to her objectified and controlled existence within Gilead. These spaces become significant in understanding the psychological and emotional toll that the regime has on the narrator and other characters within the story.