Cost of Knowledge

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFyMrP_obk/fRAiZFX519lfXCMYtYQfPw/edit?utm_content=DAFyMrP_obk&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

(Link is my artwork and video.)

“Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” This quote is derived from Genesis, chapter 3 verse 4. It illustrates a great evil in the form of a serpent, trying to corrupt Eve, God’s perfect creation, into eating the strictly forbidden tree. This temptation leads Eve to eat from the forsaken tree. Once Eve partook of the fruit from the tree, she gained a new understanding of the world. However this revelation led to the birth of human sin. The “Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, uses religious symbolism to speak on a whole myriad of different topics, but in particular, the cost of knowledge. As stated multiple times in different classroom discussions, knowledge is power, however there is a cost to this newfound information. One such example is the handmaiden previous of Offred, who, after learning from the commander, died by suicide. This moment hits close to home to our main protagonist as she has ended up in her same exact predicament, and is unsure of the best course of action. But yet still she hungers to know, such as on pg.188 “Know what? He says. Whatever there is to know,” There is a power in this, seen just as when Offred is speaking about Serena Joy’s lack of awareness of her special relationship with the commander, “Also: I now I had a power over her, of a kind, although she didn’t know it. And I enjoyed that. Why pretend? I enjoyed it a lot.” This made me wonder about knowledge and its place in the society of Gilead. And so I created my art piece, in the vain of capturing the scene of Offred first getting a taste of the outside world, from the commander. In my art piece I choose to emulate Eve’s mistake and parallel that with Offered’s current path. I have the center of the art be the bright red apple. This apple represents the role knowledge plays and how it is at the center of everything. But as you can see, surrounding the apple is the fractures of the world Offred first understood but is beginning to see past. Overhead the fracture lays the “Eyes of God”. In a biblical sense this is a fracture and strain between humanity’s relationship with God. In the world of Gilead it signifies Offred’s rebellion against the higher ups, and her forging a path that is set apart from the societal rules and norms. However if you look closely there are two sets of eyes, as one. There is white eyes and black eyes. The white eyes represent the higher ups, but the black one represents the commander. Back in the Garden of Eden, the snake led Eve using temptation but he never made her do it. The choice was ultimately Eve’s. In the same vain, the commander started this by tempting her with remnants of the old world but Offred began to choose this small rebellion on her own volition. But in the end, what Eve gained she lost with the ultimate cost of life, death. It might stand to reason then that Offred’s own story ends with death, perhaps not of her life, but the sweet bliss that lies in ignorance.