Silent Songs of Resistance: A Handmaid’s Tale Playlist

Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a world without music, where silence itself becomes a tool of control. Yet by pairing the novel’s themes with real songs, we can hear what Gilead works so hard to suppress. Each track below captures a moment or motif, giving voice to characters who are otherwise silenced.

“Sound of Silence” – Simon & Garfunkel This song reflects Offred’s private inner world, where her thoughts become her only freedom. The lyric “people talking without speaking” mirrors how Handmaids must suppress their voices while secretly holding onto memory. Offred explains: “We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print” (p. 57). Silence, here, is both a prison and a form of survival.

“Every Breath You Take” – The Police Often mistaken for romantic, this song’s obsessive watching fits Gilead’s surveillance. The Eyes operate with constant visibility: “Under His Eye” (p. 57). The song’s refrain, “every step you take, I’ll be watching you,” echoes the suffocating feeling of being observed at all times. Even intimacy is turned into control.

“Caged Bird” – Alicia Keys Inspired by Maya Angelou’s poem, this song embodies the longing for freedom. Handmaids are the caged birds, forced into obedience but still carrying memory. Offred reflects: “I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable” (p. 112). Like the bird, she sings inside her cage, holding onto her sense of self.

“Strange Fruit” – Billie Holiday Holiday’s haunting protest song against racial violence parallels Gilead’s public executions. Offred describes the bodies on the Wall: “It’s the bags over their heads that are the worst, worse than the faces themselves” (p. 43). Just as “strange fruit” became a warning to maintain order, Gilead uses death as spectacle to control the living.

“Resistance” – Muse This song highlights love as rebellion: “Love is our resistance, they’ll keep us apart and they won’t stop breaking us down.” Offred’s relationship with Nick becomes her act of survival and defiance. She admits, “I tell him my real name, and feel that therefore I am known” (p. 270). In Gilead, where identity is erased, love becomes a radical force.

By imagining these songs inside Gilead, we restore sound to a world stripped of it. Each track voices silence, surveillance, memory, violence, and resistance—reminding us why music is dangerous to dictatorships. Atwood shows us that even when voices are muted, the desire for freedom finds its rhythm.