Lit Log 1 Winston Elliott

This image outlines the use of fear in government and society. This scene takes place while the handmaid and Olglen are walking back from collecting groceries. They decided to take the long way back at home just to peer upon the wall. It is almost as if they are drawn to the scene. The handmaid thinks “I know as well as she does what she’s really after” (30) in response to Olglen wanting to see the church which is next to where the bodies hang from the wall. Why would someone want to see an image they fear? Perhaps to remind herself of her adherence to her role as a handmaid in the new society.

I wanted to have the only color in the piece be the red in the handmaid’s attire. The way they are described in the book gives the feeling of everything around them being dull and less interesting compared to the handmaids so I wanted to convey that in my piece. The red also draws the spectators eye first before the bodies hanging on the wall. My intent was for the viewer to look at the handmaid’s first and follow their gaze to the people up on the walll.

This scene is significant to me because it shows how people, especially governments use and or abuse fear. In the context of the book, fear is used to control people. If you act out of line, you will be strung up on the wall. America is very similar and only less extreme. If you act out of line, you can go to jail or you will pay a fine. Some of the world still follows the handmaid’s tales methods. It’s fear that is the backbone to any governments control over their people. This made me think about whether fear is essential for a country to function. The unfortunate truth is that it is. Without the fear of consequence there would be no societal order. The majority if not all humans possess some extent of greed. The fact of the matter is, we all want something, whether it be an item, a comfortable life, or even a comfortable life for our children. If someone such as a loved one is hurt and needs help, needs something, an item or a cure people break the law today to help them. In today’s world we see people despite possibilities of jail or a fine breaking the law to help or provide for someone they love. The love they feel outweighs the consequences for their actions. This was a driving factor for Luke, the handmaid, and their baby girl. They forged documents, disregarding the fear and tried to flee the country because of love for their freedom and child. Now think if everyone acted like this, society would be chaos. With no fear of breaking the law people would no longer need to weigh the risks and rewards of taking what they want. people would no longer need something as powerful as love to justify breaking the law. With no government, no fear of the consequences for breaking law, what is stopping people from taking what they want? Morality? Sure this could be enough for a small handful of people, but not the masses.

This brings up the question of if humans are inherently evil or not. This can be traced to experiments now outlawed such as The stanford prison experiment and Milgram experiment. The Milgram experiment demonstrated that regular humans would knowingly administer lethal doses of electricity to another person when instructed to do so by an authority figure. If people were inherently good, they would take matters into their own hands and stop delivering lethal shocks of electricity to the screaming recipient. If people were inherently good then the use of fear in government would be needed. How much fear is too much? In the handmaid’s tale, there is the very direct and extensive abuse of fear by the government. You see people disregarding their old life and conforming to a drastically different regime and lifestyle purely because of fear. In America there is the debate of if the death penalty should still be allowed, which ultimately boils down to if the government should be allowed to threaten with that level of fear. Unfortunately the world we live in isn’t so different from the handmaids, its governed all by fear.