GILEAD'S PLACEHOLDER WHETHER DEAD OR ALIVE

The wall of Gilead serves many purposes. When you are alive, it keeps you inside the republic. When you are dead, you hang on the wall. And it symbolizes the new civilization they live in. I chose to make a visual representation of Offred in her handmade outfit, staring at the wall that keeps her enclosed. It shows bodies on the wall (not drawn too graphically), and the quote from Aunt Lydia saying “This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary”. This piece resembles the enclosure of the republic where Offred is stripped of her rights and treated as no human being ever should be. Obviously the rules in the republic of Gilead are very strict, and the bodies on the wall are basically a message from the leaders, the message being that if the rules are bent, that’s where you’ll end up. And the rules are bent many a time, meaning many feel the wrath of the wall. Offred herself realizes herself how much these salvagings are happening by saying she “didn’t hear the bells. Perhaps I’ve become used to them” (Atwood 32). The wall, as though some might look at it as a pile of bricks, others might look at it as a symbol. A symbol of civilization moving backwards. The wall restricts the people in a modern world where everyone should have freedom in their everyday lives. The possibilities should be endless, however the wall puts restrictions on said possibilities. The bodies on the wall almost seem like a strategy from the higher ups, as if to show the people who defied the rules, the people who wanted nothing more than to be past the boundaries, past the tens of feet of brick. They hang them exactly on that brick, as if to convince the others that if they try to get past this wall, they will be up there next. Especially since there are unoccupied hooks next to the occupied ones, and according to Offred the hooks symbolize “appliances for the armless. Or steel question marks, upside-down and sideways” (Atwood 32). The people on the wall always have a symbol near them, showing why they have been punished. This is an attempt to show the people what exactly they are NOT to do. But at this point in Gilead, it’s not about what you cannot do, it’s about what you are actually allowed to do, because that’s a much shorter list. The blood released from the prisoners symbolizes the inhumanity of the leaders, and the lengths they go just to try and prove a point to the citizens. Lydia’s quote in the bottom right is said on page 32, where Offred describes the features of the wall. And she is making it clear that these bodies hanging on the wall is just the beginning, that this is almost definitely going to be a common occurrence from now on.