Throughout the story, Atwood is able to convey a sense of humor in the tone. One element she uses to convey this humor is setting. Atwood uses a "women's lunch room" as the setting of this discussion. The fact that it would take place in such an open, public location allows the reader to laugh at the situation as the story begins. She also uses extremely incongruous behavior from the women. An example of this would be as Chrissy heads over to the group, one expects her to discuss the serious issues of rape

Atwood uses situational irony in order to form a contrast between the women's thoughts and what actually happens in rape. These contrasts provide the reader with laughs and ease about the situation. In each fantasy given by the women, they hope for a "Tom Cruise-like man" to appear out of no where and sweep them off their feet. Greta, for instance, would like a man "all dressed in black with black gloves on...who goes all over the outside of the apartment building...from one floor to the other." While Chrissy would prefer "to be in the bathtub, with no clothes on..." when a man appears and starts "to very slowly take off his own clothes and gets into the bathtub with me." In both instances, the women talk of neither forced penetration nor a struggle. The rapist is also never powerful or in control. These examples provide irony for the women call

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 576
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)