The Handmaid's Tale - Lit Log #1 - Close Reading - "Confiscated Identity"

Lit Log #1 - Close Reading - Confiscated Identity

I.

In chapter 6, on page 32 of The Handmaid’s Tale, the narrator, Offred, describes a scene where there are six corpses being displayed on “the Wall”. It’s quite unsettling how casually she speaks of their deaths and the way in which she describes the corpses, especially their heads. Offred could even be considered unfazed by a sight which would leave the average person fearful, shocked, and appalled. Her thoughts immediately travel beyond the expected fearfulness to analyze the purpose of these corpses and their presentations.

“Though if you look and look, as we are doing, you can see the outlines of the features under the white cloth, like gray shadows” (32).

Her lack of reaction makes the scene more scary than if she had screamed and ran because it shows the reader that this is a normal occurrence in Gilead.

II.

Not only are Offred’s feelings toward the scene strange, but her descriptions of it even more so. It was interesting that she describes the obfuscation of the corpses’ faces in multiple different ways, as if to place emphasis on their anonymity.

She describes them as “dolls on which the faces have not yet been painted”, “as if their heads are sacks, stuffed with some undifferentiated material, like flour or dough”, “the heads are zeros”, “are the heads of snowmen…The heads are melting” (32).

Through these descriptors, Offred repeatedly highlights the unimportance of these heads and the people they belong to. Dolls, which are left to the control of others; flour and dough, powdery and easily spilled; zeros, nothingness and lack of value; and snowmen, temporary.

III.

A similar scene is presented at the start of chapter 8, on page 43: “There are three new bodies on the Wall. One is a priest, still wearing the black cassock…The two others have purple placards hung around their necks: Gender Treachery. Their bodies still wear the Guardian uniforms” (43).

Through these two scenes, it’s clear that the government uses this wall as a way to set an example for anyone who may harbor any ideas that don’t go along with Gilead’s expectations. Offred herself admits that “they [the bodies] are meant to scare” (32). It’s important that Offred also notes the outfits worn by each of the corpses. The six corpses on page 32 wear white coats, each with “a placard hung around his neck to show why he has been executed: a drawing of a human fetus” (32). The three mentioned on page 43 wear a black cassock and Guardian uniforms. This shows that the bodies are stripped of their identities and reduced only to their societal role. It shows that Gilead as a whole does not value anyone, even those that might have been considered on their own side. The doctors, because they had performed abortions in the past and therefore did not fit the ideals of the regime. The priests, who, though are Christian, still are not spared. The Guardians, an important role in the enforcement of Gilead’s policies, executed for being gay.

These two scenes together symbolise the fear that everyone in Gilead lives under, whether that be Handmaids, Guardians, or even Commanders. It’s an attempt to make everyone afraid because anyone, regardless of position, can and will be subjected to the ire of the government.

“They have committed atrocities and must be made into examples, for the rest” (33).

IV.

The entirety of The Handmaid’s Tale is from the first-person perspective of Offred, and her nonchalance in this scene on page 32 shows just how quickly someone’s thinking can be altered. It’s clear throughout the story that Gilead is a fairly new government. Offred remembers various scenes from both her childhood and adulthood that occurred before the establishment of Gilead. That means comparatively, Gilead is only a small fraction of the life she has led thus far. Yet the perspective of the story allows us to see that even though Offred tries to keep her mind separate from her physical situation, Gilead’s ideology has managed to seep into her thoughts. She’s been robbed of the way she thinks.

When she suspects the Handmaid alongside her in this scene to be crying at the sight of the six corpses, she thinks, “In what way could it make her look good? I can’t afford to know” (33). Whereas we might find it normal or even expected that someone would cry or otherwise show distress at such a public display of violence, Offred’s first thought is that the other Handmaid’s tears are an act. To her, there’s no way that the other Handmaid could just genuinely feel sad over these deaths; she must have an ulterior motive. This is a result of Gilead influencing her thoughts. Even though Gilead has not existed for long, it has already drastically altered her way of life and penetrated the privacy of her own mind, which is perhaps more frightening than the actual policies they put in place because you might not even realize when you become one of them.

“This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary” (33).

V.

Throughout the text, there is a theme of the loss of identity. Identity is obviously an integral part of the human experience, and Offred is consistently denied an identity. All the Handmaids are. They are not allowed to keep the names that make them unique, but are instead subject to Gilead’s naming conventions. This motif is also present in the aforementioned scenes. All the corpses on the walls have obscured faces and therefore are deprived of their identities. This move is probably so that passerby can be sufficiently cowed by the scene while feeling minimal pity or attachment to the corpses that could lead to resentment of the government.

It’s much harder to establish a resistance if no one knows who anyone is.