Despair Through the Eras (with a hint of hope)

Song 1: You Don’t Own Me By Lesley Gore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iyg_tF-mJk

An excerpt of the lyrics:

You don’t own me/ I’m not just one of your many toys/ You don’t own me/ Don’t say I can’t go with other boys

…

You don’t own me/ Don’t try to change me in any way/ You don’t own me/ Don’t tie me down ‘cause I’d never stay/

…

I’m young and I love to be young/ I’m free and I love to be free/ To live my life the way I want/ To say and do whatever I please

This song by Lesley Gore is about a woman who is in a controlling relationship and wants to tell her boyfriend that he doesn’t own her like an object and that he can’t make rules about what she can’t or cannot do. Moira’s sentiment relates to that of the song because she doesn’t allow Gilead’s rules to control her. All the handmaids are treated as sex objects. Moira doesn’t want to be used. Moira has her own will, but unlike the character portrayed in the song, she doesn’t have the ability to do and say whatever she wants, as the government restricts everyone’s actions and speech. The singer is likely able to leave her relationship, but Moira cannot do the same. Instead, Moira ran away.

Song 2: We Belong Together by Mariah Carey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ09L3sOOUY

An excerpt of the lyrics:

I couldn’t have fathomed that I would ever/ Be without your love/ Never imagined I’d be/ Sitting here beside myself

I never felt/ The feeling that I’m feeling/ Now that I don’t/ Hear your voice/ Or have your touch and kiss your lips/ ‘Cause I don’t have a choice/ Oh, what I wouldn’t give/ To have you lying by my side/ Right here, ‘cause baby/ I can’t sleep at night/ When you are on my mind/

I only think of you/ And it’s breaking my heart/ I’m trying to keep it together/ But I’m falling apart/

This song, by Mariah Carey, is about longing. The lyrics convey the sadness she feels when she’s not around her ex-lover. They also communicate Offred’s feelings as she longs for Luke. She longs to be touched, to have Luke’s attention, and to be in love. “I wanted to feel Luke lying beside me” (52) “I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not.” (97) Carey expresses the same feelings throughout the song.

Offred also misses her daughter. “I close my eyes, and she’s there with me, suddenly, without warning […]I put my face against the soft hair at the back of her neck and breathe her in, baby powder and child’s washed flesh and shampoo […].” (61) She talks about Luke and her daughter all the time and interrupts her story of Gilead with memories of them. Offred feels melancholy when thinking about her family, which is how Carey feels when she thinks about her ex: “ it’s breaking my heart [..] I’m falling apart.”

Song 3: Chopin’s Funeral March

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZY5DBmgC_A

Chopin wrote this mournful piece in the 1830s when he was in exile, away from his home in Poland. The Polish were revolting against the Russians, so Chopin was fearing for his family and friends’ lives. In one scene of the Handmaid’s Tale, Offred—in a dream—relived the memory of her daughter being taken away. It was a time of sadness and heartbreak. Offred was also fearing for the safety of her daughter. The listener can feel Chopin’s pain and grief when writing this piece, which also conveys Offred’s emotions in the scene. When Offred wakes up from her dream, she wakes up crying, because “of all the dreams this is the worst.”

Song 4: All By Myself by Irving Berlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBzTzIbwZg0

Lyrics:

All by myself in the mornin’ / All by myself in the night/ I sit alone with a table and a chair/ So unhappy there/ Playin’ solitaire./ All by myself I get lonely/ Watchin’ the clock on the shelf/ I’d love to rest my weary head/ On somebody’s shoulder/ I hate to grow older/ All by myself./

This song is about someone who is by himself, living a single but unhappy life. In the Handmaid’s Tale, the reader can infer that Offred is lonely because she doesn’t have anyone to really talk to and experience life with. She feels down when she’s alone. Sometimes she cries when she remembers the memories of her family because she misses them and wants more freedom. “[N]obody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die from. There’s nobody here I can love, all the people I could love are dead or elsewhere.” (103) Berlin sings about wanting to rest his head on somebody’s shoulder, but there’s nobody there.

Song 5: A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke

https://youtu.be/wEBlaMOmKV4

It’s been a long/ A long time coming, but I know/ A change gon’ come/ Oh yes, it will/

There been times that I thought/ I couldn’t last for long/ But now, I think I’m able/ To carry on/

“A Change is Gonna Come” is a song that was written in 1964 about hope and that things will eventually change. Cooke is hopeful that our society will become more accepting of African Americans and those who identify as minorities. Offred also has a feeling of hopefulness at one point in the Handmaid’s Tale, when she anticipates a letter from Luke, signifying that he is alive and that help is coming. To Offred, a letter would mean that change is close, that something good could occur. “Any day now there may be a message from him. […] The message will say that I must have patience: sooner or later he will get me out, we will find her, wherever they’ve put her. She’ll remember us and we will be all three of us together. (106) Cooke says that his hope for a better future keeps him alive. “I think I’m able to carry on.” It’s the same with Offred. Her hope to be reunited with her family keeps her going. “It’s this message that keeps me alive.” (106)