Hypnosis

The painting depicts a woman who had just given birth to an egg, a baby. Her gown and expressions beneath represent her upholding and giving her baby away, fulfilling her purpose with the egg. She is unfounded, unplaced, and no longer depressed. By the purpose of the egg’s aura, numerous shrouds of color engulf the mother in a spiral of mind-warping, a mind control. Her mind is no longer as it had warped before creating that egg. Her eyes revolve as the yellow spirals take possession of her pupils, relinquishing her of all pain and observations. She’s become a used puppet.

I used an egg as a personification of mind-warping to comprehend the control of its glory within The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred explains a routine of cooking and respecting eggs. Later perceiving: “I think that this is what God must look like an egg. The moon’s life may not be on the surface, but inside. The egg is glowing now as if it had an energy of its own. To look at the egg gives me intense pleasure.”(C.19) She describes her egg as God. Not only can it be mesmerized for its glory, but it’s also praised, worshiped even — the perplexion of a genuine shift of beliefs. It can almost even be a forced shift of beliefs. She also persuades — “Women used to carry such eggs between their breasts, to incubate them. That would have felt good—the minimalist life. Pleasure is an egg. Blessings that can be counted, on the fingers of one hand. But possibly this is how I am expected to react. If I have an egg, what more can I want?” (19) This deludes as an emotional source to that of the egg’s power. The egg cannot be profound any less from Offred as joy, her everything poured into that one egg. I used that perplexion in my drawing to represent a spiral of yellow in her eyes – obscure blindness to everything else around them except that egg, their child, their savior. Of minimal test, I used that egg to describe her warmth in that drawing. In that painting, trapped around multiple colors–layers of government and unholy controls that have mentally destroyed her will to fight; the woman uses the egg as warmth even in her final sanity.

While that egg can be profound by its omnipotence, its effects cannot last long. The woman holding the egg while bleeding will soon have to let go of it, not knowing why as she can’t comprehend what is happening around her except that egg. Offred then envokes: ” If I have an egg, what more can I want? In reduced circumstances, the desire to live attaches itself to strange objects. I would like a pet: a bird, say, or a cat. A familiar. Anything at all familiar. A rat would do, in a pinch, but there’s no chance of that. This house is too clean. I slice the top off the egg with the spoon, and eat the contents.” (19) Empowering the means of shares.

I used Offred’s quote of action against the woman’s uncontested ownership: the egg will not sooner belong to her. Unwavering confusion, anger, sadness, pain: nerves she can’t feel as she stands forward with the egg. Slowly, the egg could be eaten or forgotten by its fruition. As the egg and even the women, they’ve fulfilled their “purpose”.