United in Grief_Lit Log 1

United in Grief

In chapter 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale Offred and Ofglen are walking the Red Center leaving All Flesh. Ofglen tells Offred that she wants to pass by the church, and Offred narrates what she sees as she walks to give the reader an idea of what the area looks like. There’s a boat house where they used to keep the sculls, some bridges, trees, green banks, and places to sit down and look over the water. They pass by a football stadium and finally reach the church. They don’t enter but stand on the path looking in the churchyard. They stand there for a while before turning around to see the truth they have come to see: the Wall. The Wall is hundreds of years old with a gate, floodlights mounted on posts, and broken glass on the top. Near the getaway are six bodies hanging from hooks mounted into the wall. They are hung there to represent fear, disobedience, and truth. Offred says “Perhaps I’ve become used to them,” (32), which is incredible because to forget that people were hung for the world to see, shows how normalized it has become.

I chose to represent the Wall for my artwork because I wanted to visually represent the horrors that they are seeing. Offred mentions that “it doesn’t matter if we look. We’re supposed to look.” (32). This reminds me how they don’t have free will and even if they didn’t look, the bodies would still be there. They go from seeing beautiful scenery to snapping back to their reality. Each body hanging has committed “atrocities” and as Offred puts it, “must be made into examples for the rest.” (33). I imagined the Wall to be a simple brick structure and not be an architectural achievement because it was there to prevent access and show what happens to the disciplined.

I couldn’t pinpoint Offred’s face when she saw the Wall because she had become accustomed to it and it was just another stop on her journey. Instead, I chose to have her face the Wall to show that she is in deep thought about the Wall and how it leads to describing every part of it. She mentions one of the worst parts of the hanging: the white bags around their head. She describes them as “scarecrows” and says that, “ in a way is what they are, since they are meant to scare.” (32). The bodies are meant to strike fear into the disobedient and serve as a reminder of what happens to those who don’t follow the rules. She settles on a body that has a red mark around where the mouth must’ve been, in the shape of a smile. I didn’t focus on this detail much because I found it less relevant to what the Wall represented than what it might have contributed to Offred’s inner thoughts.

I used a simple color palette to show that color that has fled from their world from all the agony and torment. I kept her dress dark red because she had described it as the color of blood and her veil white to show the color symbolizes religious commitment and for dedication ceremonies like those of the births. I kept the rest of the world a grayish color because I felt as if it lacked color. After all, seeing a saturated world didn’t matter to the Republic anymore. I wanted to capture the overwhelming sense of fear and submission that the Wall has in The Handmaid’s Tale. The Wall isn’t just a symbol of punishment but a brutal reminder of how power can dehumanize and strip one of their individuality. Their faces are kept hidden, stripping away who they are just to be a mere warning to others.

Through my artwork, I want viewers to feel the silence around the Wall as a stillness that reflects both the regime’s control and the passivity it forces upon its people. I wanted viewers and readers alike to realize that even if there was a large change in power in Gilead, they could not save them. The bodies will continue to hang there—with white bags around their heads to silence their voices, united in grief.