Gilead Playlist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHzOOQfhPFg (Just a Girl - No Doubt)

Throughout the Handmaid’s Tale, there is a continuing theme of the repression of women in Gilead. Several lyrics call out the stereotypes and strife of women in the 1990s: “Oh, I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite/So don’t let me have any rights” being the most impactful. In Gilead, the Handmaids are covered up completely, with big white bonnets to cover their face and a red dress and gloves. “The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen”(8). Women in Gilead are often treated as ornaments, or instruments for one thing, much like in Just a Girl, when the singer remarks, “I’m just a girl in the world/That’s all that you’ll let me be,” drawing a parallel between the stereotypes of the gender and the repressive society of Gilead. In Gilead, women are not allowed to be seen, as Aunt Lydia remarks. “To be seen—to be seen—is to be—her voice trembled—penetrated. What you must be girls, is impenetrable. She called us girls”(28). The women, including Offred, are so indoctrinated by Gilead that they have these very stereotypes and ideas drilled into them, by watching pornography and snuff films: “Women kneeling, sucking penises or guns, women tied up or chained or with dog collars around their necks…Once we had to watch a woman being slowly cut into pieces…Consider the alternatives, said Aunt Lydia. You see what things used to be like? That was what they thought of women, then”(118). Gilead trained the Handmaids through film and constant beration of the past to put them in a box and teach them forcefully that Gilead is a better life for them, even though they are incredibly and singularly repressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjxr_No-yuY (Sheela-na-gig - PJ Harvey)

The sexualization and treatment of the Handmaids has been another recurrence throughout the book. The Handmaids are used as surrogates to give birth to a child for the Commander and his Wife, and are consequently treated with jealousy from the other women in Gilead, and a sort of longing and respect from the men, who need to earn the right to touch a woman. “Look at these, my child-bearing hips” is one lyric in PJ Harvey’s song that I feel encapsulates how men are portrayed in Atwood’s book. The Guardians at the crossing viewed Offred as something to covet, something unattainable to them, and she knows the one thing that gives her power is her sex appeal: “I hope they get hard at the sight of us and have to rub themselves against the painted barriers…They have no outlets now except themselves, and that’s a sacrilege”(22). It’s ironic that the one thing that gives her power is something not thought needed by a Handmaid, whose only purpose is to provide children: “I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will”(73). The reason no lotion or skin products are provided to Handmaid’s is simply because Gilead thinks of them as vessels for child-birth. “He said ‘wash your breasts, I don’t want to be unclean’/He said ‘please take those dirty pillows away from me’” is another line that relates to the opinion of many women that it’s okay for men to sexualize women, but if women act sexy, they’re called out and demeaned for it. Just like if Offred acts on her base urges instead of following societal norms; she’ll be classified an Unwoman and shipped away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf04EYSifjE (Holy War - Thy Art is Murder)

Although religion is not talked about very much thus far in the text, it is a recurring theme. “Armies of guardians, servants of bibles” is a lyric that connects to the structure of Gilead, which the reader also knows very little about, only as much as Offred does. Guardians, or Guardians of the Faith, are soldiers and butlers, some of which work under the Commanders, some of which work the crossings the Handmaids pass through. Angels are higher up, and nothing is known about them as of yet. But aside from the biblical references throughout the text, there are clues as to what happened in Gilead’s past and is happening in the present—Offred comes across bodies on the wall, “One is a priest, still wearing the black cassock. That’s been put on him, for the trial, even though they gave up wearing those years ago, when the sect wars first began; cassocks made them too conspicuous”(43). This provides a small clue to what has happened—Gilead is out to get other religious groups, who are deemed heretics for not following Gilead’s leadership and code. “I reject the laws of the misguided/False prophets imprison nations fueling self annihilation” corroborates this speculative story. Before the Ceremony, a broadcast takes place that provides some more, perhaps skewed, information: “‘Five members of the heretical sect of Quakers have been arrested,’ he says, smiling blandly, ‘and more arrests are anticipated’”(83). This further reinforces the plausible narrative created with the little information given.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckom3gf57Yw (The Unforgiven - Metallica)

The Unwomen are not very discussed in the Handmaid’s Tale. However, there have been many clues as to how Unwomen are classified and some conjecture as to what could possibly be their fate. The Marthas seem to have more knowledge than Offred, who finds out over eavesdropping on their conversation earlier in the book: “Go to the Colonies, Rita said. They have the choice. With the Unwomen, and starve to death and Lord knows what all? said Cora. Catch you”(10). There is this idea of false choice that emerges in several other contexts in the book—while the Handmaids have the choice of going to the Colonies, why would they want to, when there is this life for them in Gilead, that is comfortable, while not the ideal way to live their lives? In other parts of the book, it becomes apparent that people in higher positions of power can reclassify women, as Offred is constantly afraid of. “I’ll label you/So I dub the unforgiven” is a lyric of the Unforgiven that matches this idea. “Never free/Never me/So I dub the unforgiven” remarks on the fear Offred feels of being reclassified if she does anything outside of the rules in Gilead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO6nRXPzX1A (Mother - Danzig)

Media censorship has emerged during the chapter on the Ceremony as another big idea that contributes to the success of Gilead. “Serena always lets us watch the news. Such as it is: who knows if any of it is true? It could be old clips, it could be faked. But I watch it anyway, hoping to be able to read beneath it. Any news, now, is better than none”(82). In most cases of media censorship, which we have evidence of in the present, the public is only shown good things that are happening, or incredibly skewed footage. Offred knows this, but if this kind of media is the only way she and others will know about the outside world, what choice do they have but to understand it as the truth? “Mother/Can you keep them in the dark for life?/Can you hide them from the waiting world?/Oh mother” is a lyric that aligns with this idea: if the media they are seeing is the only outlet, it can be incredibly difficult to believe in anything else, especially, in Offred’s case, if she is being told that she’ll be free soon enough: “He tells us what we long to believe. He’s very convincing. I struggle against him. He’s like an old movie star, I tell myself, with false teeth and a face job. At the same time I sway towards him, like one hypnotized. If only it were true. If only I could believe”(83). Offred knows the media is inaccurate, and very selective, and yet, as is the case in many countries today, after a while, it becomes hard to see that what is being shown as not the truth.