The Handmaids Playlist

The first song I want to introduce is called “Labor” by Paris Paloma and the lyrics consist of a list of things that the woman is expected to do by a man. The lyrics I want to highlight in this song are, “Somebody I thought was my savior, you make me do too much labor.” It connects to the text because in the story the women were expected to work and complete manual labor until they got pregnant, which is why they glorified it so much. We first see this glorification of pregnancy when Offred’s doctor tells her “I could help you,” referring to impregnation and the second time we see it is when Offred says “She’s a flag on a hilltop, showing us what can still be done: we too can be saved” referring to the pregnant woman she saw in the market. The next song I want to bring up is Satisfied from a play called Hamilton. I find this song to be relatable to the text through its references to the standardized expectations of the women living in the time period where Hamilton takes place,”I’m a girl in a world in which My only job is to marry rich”. I chose this quote because it reinforces a societal gender norm that men have to have money and women have to marry rich. We see an example of this same societal gender norm in the book where the “econowives” are mentioned and they are described as “red and blue and green and cheap and skimpy, that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they’re called.” Both of these quotes serve the purpose of reinforcing a negative connotation that men need to have money and that women have to marry rich. The third song i chose to go on this playlist is “The Schylar Sisters” its another song from the play “Hamilton” and its important to the text because another one of the societal norms. The quote I chose from this text is “ your perfume smells like your daddys got money”. I chose this quote because it derives from another societal gender norm that was popular at the time, which is for the women in the house to depend on the men and their wages, as well as not to pursue education or a job. We see this in our story when Offred says, “Psychology, English, economics. We studied things like that, then in reference to how they used to be allowed to get education but the government took that away from them to make the men more valuable and the women more dependent on them. The next song I want to talk about in relativity to the book we’re reading is “That would be enough” from Hamilton and I find this quote important because it’s referencing the negative connotation and societal norms mentioned earlier but it comes from a man’s perspective. Hamilton gives us insight and perspective on his struggles and perspective of his responsibilities in a woman’s life when he asks, “Will you relish being a poor man’s wife”. This quote indicates a certain pressure surrounding Hamilton’s work life, his family life, and his ability to balance both while also being able to provide for his family. Another reason I find this quote to be intriguing is because in the book everything is written from a first person perspective so we never get a true comprehension of how the men in the book fell. Offred has experienced many things that impacted the way she perceives herself and wears down on her self esteem. I think this song oblivion does a great job of helping the audience understand Offred through the lyrics “Oblivion, Wish I would go back, I could go back to no one, Oblivion, Wish I would go back, I could go back to nothing” I think these few lines of the song have a major impact on the way she used to live and the norms she wishes were still normal. Wishing she could go back to “no one” could mean that she wished she could go back to being no one because she has societal pressures upon her from her role as a handmaid but it could also mean she wishes she could go back to “no one”, “no one” being an absence of the people she needs to validate and earn the approval of in her current situation, she wishes she could go back to not needing to impress anyone, she wishes to escape the judgment. .