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Lit Log #2 Close Reading:

In chapter 31 of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood gives the readers a deeper look into the inner thoughts of Offred and her struggle through vivid imagery and deep thoughts. The first thing that I notice is that the chapter starts with her repetitive thoughts. Atwood writes, “In the morning I will wake up in my own house and things will be back the way they were.”(199) This line immediately stuck out to me because not only does this particular repetition of wanting to escape this reality she’s in give us a look into how hopeless she feels, but also how repetitive her life in Gilead is, with no sign of improvement or change in the near future. Atwood contrasts this desire of hers with her realization that, “It hasn’t happened this morning, either.” The way that both of these sentences connect with each other in an emotionally broken way is while the first sentence expresses hope and goals, while the second lets the reader know that it is unfulfilled.

The vocabulary and diction are also incredibly important and significant to my understanding of Offred’s character as well. When Offred takes time to describe what summer feels like to her Atwood uses words such as “Breathless” and “Sauna” (199) which automatically struck me first. Breathless not only speak on her how one could lose breath in the hot and warm days but also how she’s being suffocated by her own thoughts in her room trapped and enclosed like how one would be in a sauna. She then writes about how Independence Day was “abolished” (199) which puts emphasis on how her own freedom was as well.I think that another double meaning word she used would be on page 200 when she writes “I’d ike to have Luke here, in this bedroom” she then later mentions an inevitable egg which she refers to being “Lukewarm” like her room. I think that she puts a double meaning on that word because the closest feeling she has to Luke being with her in her bedroom in the summer is the egg.

Atwood’s use of discerning patterns in this book are also very interesting to the readers as well. In this particular section from chapter 31, Atwood’s sentence structure when in reference to Offred’s despair usually includes a lot of punctuation, such as periods, dashes, and commas which creates a tension to the readers with pauses which make the readers understand and break down her feelings more. “I bend over to do up my red shoes; lighter weight these days, with discreet slits cut in them, though nothing so daring as sandals.” (199) Then she uses different types of writing like narration and description which is seen throughout the whole book to help vividly put us into the thoughts of Offred and her experiences. There seems to be paradoxes when it comes to her wanting her independence so badly while being trapped in a place that doesn’t allow that.

In terms of point of view and characterization in this book the readers are being told from the first person perspective of offred. She comes off as an unreliable narrator at times due to her constantly switching between memories of the past and what’s happening in the present. This not only confuses the readers and builds up tension but it also gives the readers another view into offreds psychological state as well. She says, “ I decide I’m only having an attack of sentimentality, my brain going pastel Technicolor, like the beautiful-sunset greeting cards they used to make so many of in California. High-gloss hearts.” (200) This quote shows us more of her struggle when it comes to trying to forget and remember her past while adapting to her issue in the present. Her use of imagery by saying “my brain going pastel Technicolor” and comparing them to old happy greeting cards contrasts to her dull and empty life in Gilead with an emotional disconnection to her brighter past. This really brings the readers into thinking is she starting to slowly lose her mind?

And lastly what really piqued my interest was when she mentioned the “wreath on the ceiling” (200) which to me really was a good way to further describe her entrapment. She calls it a frozen halo, which really a halo is known as a symbol of holiness but to call it frozen, is she saying her purity and wellbeing is also held captive like her in the room?

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale delves into the harrowing experiences of Offred, a woman stripped of her autonomy but most importantly her livelihood. One particular moment occurs when Offred is given a picture of her daughter but denied the ability to keep it by Serena Joy, the commander’s wife. “It has washed over me, washed me away as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water….You can see it in her eyes: I am not there(228.)” This scene resonates deeply with me, evoking feelings of longing, loss, and the complex dynamics of motherhood, emotions that parallel my own life experiences. More to that, I moved from New York to Philly when I was about six years old, leaving my mother was one of the hardest things I had to endure but I know that I relate to Offred’s daughter in a way. The pictures I took growing up when I moved were completely different, especially knowing that I struggled with the complex dynamics of motherhood and fatherhood. I had to depend upon my grandmother which made everything in my life completely different and in pictures I didn’t have the same happiness that I had when I was with my mother. It’s similar to this quote because when Offred glimpses at the photograph of her daughter, it represents the painful reminder of her past life, filled with mistakes that she couldn’t take back. The fact that she had no possession of the photograph amplified her feelings of loss and helplessness. This moment has resonated with me because it reflects my feelings concerning the deep emotional scars left by my separation from my parents. Although I was young when all this happened to me, the emotional fallout was so intense for me that I can sort of understand the perspective of Offred’s daughter although we have different situations they are similar. I often found myself longing for the moments captured in photographs of happier times, moments that felt irretrievably lost. The photograph also symbolizes not just a memory but the oppressive forces of Gilead that seek to erase Offred’s identity as a mother. The control over her life extends to her relationship with her daughter, leaving her in a constant state of desire. “But she exists, in her white dress. She grows and lives. Isn’t that a good thing? A blessing? Still, I can’t bear it, to have been erased like that(228.)” This resonates with my own experiences of societal expectations and the pressure to comply with rules. For instance, during my young teenage years, I faced a ton of pressure from my friends and family to follow a predetermined path in education. Much like Offred whose identity is subverted by the roles imposed on her, I struggled to assert my desires against the expectations set in front of me. The photograph serves as a reminder of what Offred has lost, just as I often felt the weight of expectations overshadowing my true aspirations. Offred’s emotional turmoil upon seeing the photograph is compounded by her inability to act on her feelings. She is aware that her maternal instincts are stifled by a regime that values women only for their reproductive capabilities. “When there’s meat they cut it up for me ahead of time, as if I’m lacking manual skills or teeth. I have both, however. That’s why I’m not allowed a knife(228.)” This helplessness resonates with me, particularly during times when I felt powerless to change my circumstances. For example, when my family faced financial difficulties, I often felt like an observer in my own life, unable to influence the situation. The sense of being trapped, much like Offred’s confinement in Gilead, evokes a profound empathy within me. I understand the frustration of wanting to reach out and connect but feeling constrained by external forces. Especially knowing that those external forces don’t ever truly understand you’re situation unless they have been in your shoes before. Moreover, Offred’s experience highlights the broader theme of maternal bonds and the sacrifices that come with them. Her desire to protect her daughter, even from afar, resonates with my own experiences of motherhood and the challenges that accompany it. As a child, whose parents never got married but ended up separating when I was young, I often felt the need to protect my younger siblings from the emotional struggles of our family situation. This instinct to shield loved ones from pain, even when I was struggling, mirrors Offred’s fierce love for her daughter. The photograph served as a reminder that, despite the barriers imposed by society, the bond between a mother and child should remain unbreakable.

“i’d find you” by phendste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERlJjq6cyzA

This song by Phendste resonates with the longing and resilience found in The Handmaid’s Tale, as Offred has a tendency to cling to the hope that she might be reunited with her husband, Luke. The lyrics within the song, “So hold on, don’t you dare lose hope, I will find you” mirror Offred’s desire for a future beyond Gilead, where Luke might still be searching for her, keeping her hope alive. Offred’s wish to “have Luke here… so I could have a fight with him” on page 200 reflects this yearning for even the simplest connection to her old life. Emphasizing even small acts of intimacy like arguing are luxuries in her isolated world. Similarly, the lyric “Oh guard your heart for me baby” speaks to a need for emotional protection; something Offred must do to survive under the constant surveillance and oppression of the regime of Gilead. This song echoes Offred’s silent determination, desperate yearning for her old life, and love for her former partner, Luke.

“Solitude” by Billie Holiday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiU-O8arVa8

Billie Holiday’s “Solitude” fully shows the despair and isolation Offred experiences in The Handmaid’s Tale. The lyric “I sit in my chair, filled with despair… with gloom everywhere” reflects Offred’s daily experiences, and existence, seeing as she spends hours sitting in her room with little to do but contemplate her fate in Gilead. The line “In my solitude, I’m praying” in the song suggests a sense of forced faith when aligned with Offred, in Gilead, since as far as the reader is aware, Offred was not mentioned to be affiliated with any religion prior to her indoctrination as a Handmaid. This indoctrination reflects her limited choices for solace, and solitude in a world where she feels “buried” (page 211) and confined. Continuing this sense of isolation, on page 199 Offred notes how “this isn’t a jail sentence” because there is “no time to be done and finished.” Overall, this song reflects the sinister reality Offred experiences in each and every day, living in Gilead.

“Devil In A New Dress” by Kanye West https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk3rpYkiHe8

Kanye West’s “Devil In A New Dress” exposes the hypocrisy and moral decay within Gilead rulers/ruling class. The line “We ain’t married but tonight I need some consummation” echoes through the commanders’ disregard for their own laws, illustrated during the club scene where the indulge in, well, illicit activities. This reflects the hidden depravity within Gilead, as they exploit women while enforcing strict morality elsewhere. The lyric “What happen to religion? Oh, she lose it” looks back to the indoctrination piece mentioned earlier, and aligns with the superficial religiousness of Gilead, where religion seems to be but a tool used to control the masses. Offred’s contemplation, “I avoid looking down at my body… because I don’t want to see it” (page 63), shows how Gilead has stripped Offred of her autonomy, reducing her identity to her body’s utility. Overall, her desire to resist her fate in any manner reflects a silent rebellion against the Commanders’ hypocrisy, who secretly (although now known) breaks their own rules while she is forced to comply.

“America’s Most Blunted” by Madvillain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jytxkJUM_7U

Madvillain’s “America’s Most Blunted” reflects a state of escape and numbness that resonates with Offred’s struggle for peace. The line “And they wondered how he dealt with stress so well, Wild guess? You could say he stayed sedated” parallels Offred’s attempts to numb herself in Gilead. In her limited, bland world, she treasures the night as “my own time, to do with as I will, as long as I am quiet” (page 52), using the nighttime as a means to detach from the world, similar to a cannabis user. When she acknowledges how every “thought must be rationed” (page 116), she reflects her very calculated effort to stay emotionally sedated, as thinking, or overthinking could lead to an immeasurable amount of despair. Following this line of thought about sedation: during a scene with Serena Joy, Offred is given a cigarette (page 206), which seems to be a calculated move from Serena Joy: to sedate, and calm Offred.

“Creative Control” O.C. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXSlKDIl7Ss

O.C.’s “Creative Control” captures themes of individuality and autonomy, which are not present throughout The Handmaid’s Tale—except for one person. Moira. Her rebellious spirit echoes through the line “stop, look and heed, participate in the re-organizing” knowing she was attempting to dismantle Gilead’s oppressive structure, refusing to conform to the societal category and obligations forced upon her. The declaration from the Angels that she was “too dangerous to be allowed the privilege of returning to the Red Center” (p. 249) exemplifies her refusal to “give in, go along, save her skin.” (page 249) like Offred says she has, much like many others. Just as the song speaks to claiming agency, and your creativity, Moira’s defiance is a stand for creative control over her own identity, in stark contrast to Offred, who admits one page 84, “I can’t remember what my real name is.” The lyrics of this song reflect a desire for self-determination, and Moira’s audacity makes her a powerful figure of resistance to the regime in Gilead; even within the constraints of Gilead, some individuals are able to reclaim their sense of self.

Being a woman has never been easy over the whole course of civilization. Although there have been improvements made, the prejudice against women has never stopped. In the book, The Handmaid’s Tale, author Margaret Atwood describes what being a woman in Gilead, before their freedom got taken away, looked like for the female characters in the book.

“I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: Don’t open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police. Make him slide his ID under the door. Don’t stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble. Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don’t turn to look. Don’t go into a laundromat, by yourself, at night,” (Pg. 24).

Offred is expressing the things she learned growing up in Gilead because of her gender. What’s surprising to me is how well it connects with what women learn today about their personal safety. I became really independent as I grew older and that required me to go to a lot of places by myself. Some would say I didn’t look my age because I was on the taller side and had been more developed than those in my age range. The way I looked didn’t really phase me when I was traveling by myself because I was just a kid. But when I started high school, things changed drastically for me. Before I never experienced the dangers of being a woman in public because I was always in areas where I wouldn’t encounter things like that or I was with my family. My highschool was in a very different location than what I was used to. Even though I have lived in the city for most of my life, I was always on the outskirts rather than directly in the city. And whenever I was in the city, I would have an adult by my side. When starting highschool, this all changed because I started to go to the city by myself to go to school and other extracurriculars. Of course I was told to be safe and let my mom know where I am at all times but I didn’t really realize what she meant by “be safe,” until the school year started to go by and traveling in and out of center city was the norm for me.

I remember walking to the train station and the sidewalk I was walking on happened to be right next to a very busy street. As I was walking, a car slowed down past me, honked and whistled at me, and then drove off. I was confused at first but then realized it was a grown man in that car trying to cat-call me knowing I looked like a kid coming from school. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable and unsafe because I didn’t know if this was gonna be the last time something like this happened. This situation compares to the “rules” Offred describes in quote because even though I am in a completely different timeframe/reality from her, I still have to abide by the same rules she describes. When you get older and start to experience more unhinged things that men do towards you, you know deep down how to react to it and how to prevent it from happening. Experience teaches you lessons. I know now not to walk next to a busy street by myself or respond to strangers (majority men) who have bad intentions with me. My mom never told me these rules but I found them out just by being a woman.

Offred also mentions the change that the women in the book now encounter because of the government’s decisions. Now that all of them are handmaids, their reality has become completely different.

“Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles. There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it,” (Pg. 24)

She’s describing what life is like now that women are under the control of the government and how they only get freedom “from” them to do certain things. This caused more safety for the handmaids but made them seem like objects. As you get deeper into the book, Offred goes with her commander to a club and although she is technically protected, the men still look at her like she is something to judge from head to toe.

“The Commander does the talking for me, to this man and to the others who follow him. He doesn’t say much about me, he doesn’t need to. He says I’m new, they look at me and dismiss me and confer together about other things,” (Pg. 236).

The way they reacted to her makes me think what would happen if I was treated the same way in my reality. Would I be shut down just like that? Would I look weird? Although women are not represented as objects nowadays, some people still see us as one, which proves the point Margaret Atwood is trying to make. Gilead is not that much different than society today when you think about how women are treated. It’s not as obvious in our reality but it does still happen, creating windows between the book and real life.

My artwork is about how Offred thought of how winter was not dangerous yet she saw some evil rooted deep within Serena Joy’s garden yet nobody had truly noticed it before.

Not only that but it supposedly shows how their secrets buried deep within the garden that had been long kept there and now needed to be brought into the light as if those secrets had a voice that needed to be heard.

My artwork also in a way shows how the voices of those secrets have been kept hidden for so many years that they had begun to become louder and louder as if they were grim grinning ghosts who had come out to socialize therefore causing offred to wonder if the emptiness that she spoke to when she told her story were there truly voices starting to hear her or was she just losing her inner self after being there for so long without any true reality of her own.

While reading The Handmaid’s Tale, Moira was one of the characters that stuck out to me due to her rebellious nature and antics. She reminded me of one of my older cousins who is and was one of the most rebellious people I know. He always did the opposite of whatever anyone told him and was overprotective of himself. To me, my cousin growing up was my idol. I looked up to him heavily as he was like an older brother to me. I watched him and almost studied him just trying to understand him and the way he moved, his outlook on the world.

Chapter 22 of the book describes Moira’s plans to escape and it reminded me of when my cousin and I had a conversation about how he wanted change for himself and wanted to leave Philadelphia. He was tired of the terrible feeling that was attached to him by being in Philly. He was filled with so much emotion and passion for his desire to leave as Moira seems to have had through Offred’s perspective. From Offred’s viewpoint, we see that Moira has a plan of escape by overflowing the toilet and killing Aunt Elizabeth, swapping clothes, and walking right out of the center. As stated in chapter 22 on pages 130-132 her plan to escape by overflowing the toilet and then bringing Aunt Elizabeth to “help” fix the toilet Moira stabs Aunt Elizabeth in the ribs then tells her “I’ll stick it all the way in, I know where, I’ll puncture your lung.” From my perspective, my cousin was killing his emotional ties to Philadelphia and taking this leap of faith of moving out of state and didn’t look back. For about a year we didn’t speak to each other as I reminded him of home. The idea of home was too painful for him as everything he knew and loved was Philadelphia. Philadelphia was his home but so much baggage came with it and he was tired of the pain and suffering that was tied to him living here.

As I see from my perspective after reading what Offred has expressed throughout what I have read about Moira, it seems as if Moira holds in a lot of pain and deals with her pain through humor. Growing up I noticed my cousin would joke a lot and tried to make everyone else laugh with him I was too young to understand, but as I got older I finally understood why he would do that. Even though as I got older he would tell me more about his life, his pain, his suffering I couldn’t understand why he did the stuff he did till I could understand his emotional state. I came to the realization when reading the story when Moira was talking about the idea of date rape and how she was quick to laugh as if off like it was just a regular joke to make from that point, after deliberating with my classmates I could conclude that it probably happened to Moira. From the connection, I could make between Moira and my cousin just like Offred, I noticed how rebellion has changed the course of life. My cousin’s rebellious behavior caused our relationship to get put on hold for some time as the time we spent together was limited my parents thought his behavior was going to rub off on me as I started to follow in his footsteps. My relationship with my parents changed because of the effects of my and my cousin’s relationship as they kept me away from the stuff he was doing. From secretly hanging out with him when my parents weren’t home to me meeting up with him out in the city. We built such a tight bond that when he left I changed and at a point, I was so shocked that it felt numb like it seemed like Offred feels at the beginning of the book. When we didn’t talk it felt like he almost didn’t exist because he didn’t talk to anyone so no one got an update on him. His leaving was tough but I know it was for the best just like it was for Moira. They both gained their idea of freedom, Moira’s escape from Gilead, and my cousin’s escape from what he saw as his hellscape. Offred and I could both see that escape can be the only way to find pure happiness and change but also can spark something inside someone else.

In chapter 2 of the Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood, the main character Offred is having a moment of internal monologue while adjusting her room in the home of her new host family. One quote, among many, that I found very interesting was, “ Waste not want. I am not being wasted, why do I want?” I found this idea to be very philosophical. Reading it generated a lot of questions in my mind; what does it mean to not be wasted as a humanist being and not a physical object? What is the basis of a want? I wanted to examine these questions in two different contexts: Offred’s life and mine. For Offred to be “not wasted” is to be a Handmaid or a surrogate. Even though it is stated to her that this is a necessary and selfless position, it is not what wants. The indoctrination that she went through in the Red Center to prepare her for the role may have changed her circumstances greatly and made that her only option for “use” but it did not suddenly turn it into something that she wanted. This lack of option in how she is not wasted more than likely left her feeling incomplete. Coupling this lack of option or choice with the things that Gilead and the new government has taken from her, her partner, her child, her education, her free will, which are all things that she wants makes her unfulfilled. Being told what you should be feeling by no means makes you feel it. She spends everyday doing something that she has no desire for and no choice so naturally she wants. Something different or something more. In my life I think my use is the work I do inside of school and out. I think where I start to differ from Offred is that my “not waste” is care. I come from a very stable family with good incomes, I have never truly needed for anything. I am not without necessities and I am not without love. I have had so many amazing opportunities throughout as a result of my family not wasting me, they see me as something that describes attention and care. “I am not wasted, why do I want”; I know that I am lucky to have received everything I have in my life but I still find myself wanting more. I feel envious of the lives I see other people lead. Social media definitely plays a big part of this feeling; all the things I want magnified in other people even though I am aware of the fact that people hardly live the lives we see on screen but I feel it in my real life as well. My friends being invited to parties I hadn’t even heard of, having skills that I can’t seem to grasp no matter how hard I try, having siblings, being in relationships. I know I don‘t need any of these things, that I should be ok with what I have seeing as so many people don’t have access to the same things as me but I want, even though I know I am in no way being wasted. I often have an internal moral battle with myself over this. But then I think, do I want something more or do I want something different? To compare my life with Offred’s seems almost disrespectful in a way but, putting these to ideas side by side and asking that question, “ I am not being wasted, why do I want?”, makes some things a bit clearer on both sides. I believe that Offred’s wants and mine oversect a bit, I don’t think we want something more, we want something different. For Offred that would be to live in a different version of her world where she has the people she cares about, where she can read freely, where she has control over her own body. For myself, I would want to live in a different county, have different interests, and have a different way of walking through life. I would want to be a black Italian woman who rides a Vespa and works in her father’s bookshop. This is something that I want but I will never have and that’s okay. I am by no means wasted and for that I am incredibly grateful, but I am still allowed to want. In chapter 2 of the Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood, the main character Offred is having a moment of internal monologue while adjusting her room in the home of her new host family. One quote, among many, that I found very interesting was, “ Waste not want. I am not being wasted, why do I want?” I found this idea to be very philosophical. Reading it generated a lot of questions in my mind; what does it mean to not be wasted as a humanist being and not a physical object? What is the basis of a want? I wanted to examine these questions in two different contexts: Offred’s life and mine. For Offred to be “not wasted” is to be a Handmaid or a surrogate. Even though it is stated to her that this is a necessary and selfless position, it is not what wants. The indoctrination that she went through in the Red Center to prepare her for the role may have changed her circumstances greatly and made that her only option for “use” but it did not suddenly turn it into something that she wanted. This lack of option in how she is not wasted more than likely left her feeling incomplete. Coupling this lack of option or choice with the things that Gilead and the new government has taken from her, her partner, her child, her education, her free will, which are all things that she wants makes her unfulfilled. Being told what you should be feeling by no means makes you feel it. She spends everyday doing something that she has no desire for and no choice so naturally she wants. Something different or something more. In my life I think my use is the work I do inside of school and out. I think where I start to differ from Offred is that my “not waste” is care. I come from a very stable family with good incomes, I have never truly needed for anything. I am not without necessities and I am not without love. I have had so many amazing opportunities throughout as a result of my family not wasting me, they see me as something that describes attention and care. “I am not wasted, why do I want”; I know that I am lucky to have received everything I have in my life but I still find myself wanting more. I feel envious of the lives I see other people lead. Social media definitely plays a big part of this feeling; all the things I want magnified in other people even though I am aware of the fact that people hardly live the lives we see on screen but I feel it in my real life as well. My friends being invited to parties I hadn’t even heard of, having skills that I can’t seem to grasp no matter how hard I try, having siblings, being in relationships. I know I don‘t need any of these things, that I should be ok with what I have seeing as so many people don’t have access to the same things as me but I want, even though I know I am in no way being wasted. I often have an internal moral battle with myself over this. But then I think, do I want something more or do I want something different? To compare my life with Offred’s seems almost disrespectful in a way but, putting these to ideas side by side and asking that question, “ I am not being wasted, why do I want?”, makes some things a bit clearer on both sides. I believe that Offred’s wants and mine oversect a bit, I don’t think we want something more, we want something different. For Offred that would be to live in a different version of her world where she has the people she cares about, where she can read freely, where she has control over her own body. For myself, I would want to live in a different county, have different interests, and have a different way of walking through life. I would want to be a black Italian woman who rides a Vespa and works in her father’s bookshop. This is something that I want but I will never have and that’s okay. I am by no means wasted and for that I am incredibly grateful, but I am still allowed to want.

In chapter 17, Offred is sneaking downstairs because of her need to take something to feel noticed, she then encounters Nick who sweeps her off her feet and the two almost do something that cost them their lives.

As I read “I think about the hanged men, hooked on the stairs, before I dissolve entirely.” on page 99, This part resonates with me because the feeling of doing something you know was wrong puts a certain fear in you. Like Offred, I’ve had moments where I was too focused on what I wanted at that moment to see what could’ve happened due to my actions. Over the past few chapters, I’ve noticed that the limitations of this society are mostly based on the Bible and Christianity pushed to the extreme. Ideals are twisted into something that could be manipulated by the higher-ups in Gilead, not allowing women to express who they truly are. I have had moments where I had to hold back certain parts of myself for fear of what others might think or judge me. Moments like Offred where I just wanted to be who I was, ignoring any consequences, wanting the feeling to express ourselves freely.

What connected me to Offred was the quote “It’s so good, to be touched by someone, to be felt so greedily, to feel so greedy. Luke, you’d know, you’d understand. It’s you here, in another body. Bullshit.” On page 99. There have been so many times that justification plagued my mind, especially when I did something I knew I shouldn’t have done. The act of lying to one’s self just to come up with a reason is so real to me, especially since we know how important Luke is to Offred. The father of her child and her husband, Luke occupies her thoughts when she thinks to herself it’s very apparent that she loves him. For her to turn to another man and almost give in to her wants, I think of my mother. The way I’d blatantly disobey her just to fill my own heart, whether that be doing something behind her back, lying to her, or anything else. I knew I could’ve just not done those things but chose to anyway. I always loved her no matter the situation but in those instances, I was focused on how I was feeling at that very moment. Now that I can see her anymore I empathize with Offred because she doesn’t know the state that Luke is in. I feel as if we both took the ones we loved for granted and now have to live with the fact that times have changed and we have to adapt to these changes.

The want for attention makes me think of the quote “I want Luke here so badly. 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 valued.” Written on page 98, I felt as if this section was about the need to feel needed or wanted, we as humans are social creatures who desire to be with people who will acknowledge us and accept us. I often feel that it is something you want to be known for, but at the same time too embarrassing to say. Offred has been denied any form of affection and reassurance and has been put in a state of loneliness that has been piled up negatively for however long these laws have been made. I have had times where I feel intense loneliness and in those times I’ve felt very desperate to have any kind of connection. I have an amazing support system and it would be a nightmare for them to be taken away from me. In that scenario, I can see why the rules would seem so small in her interaction with Nick. If that fulfillment could be satisfied for even a moment it would all be worth it.

Few people can say they understand what Offred has been through since her situations were pushed to the extreme for the narrative. However, throughout all of her experiences, there is always something we could connect to, Especially when it comes to the interactions with other people and our basic human needs. To be accepted for who we are is all anyone ever wants and it’s that want that could get us into trouble, Humans are easy to take apart if you know what to look for. We all want to feel Desired.

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.

The section that caught my attention instantly during my reading was on page seventy-four of The Handmaid’s Tale, where Luke, Offred, and her daughter are making an attempt to escape to the border. Throughout the reading, we hadn’t known what had happened with her daughter and Luke, and while we did have some snippets here of the two we did not have much information in regards to who they were. This was the first time that we had figured out what had happened to the three, and created a lot of foreshadowing for the future. ¨Luke is there, behind me, I turn to see him. He won’t look at me, he looks down at the floor, where the cat is rubbing itself against his legs, mewing and mewing plaintively. It wants food, but how can there be any food with the apartment so empty? Luke, I say. He doesn’t answer. Maybe he doesn’t hear me. It occurs to me that he may not be alive.¨ The first thing that came to mind was if Luke was really dead? Throughout the story we can understand that the handmaid has a pretty negative tone throughout, essentially expecting the worst, we understand this in different scenes like the one where she is shown a photo of her daughter and she instantly assumes she is dead, but how can Luke be dead? Is she remembering things wrong? Usually people do not die standing up right, in fact it’s probably impossible, but in this scene the reader can understand that he is standing up right, or probably is. Then in the next page, at the bottom it says, ¨The bell wakes me; and then Cora, knocking at my door.¨ Now this is really confusing, was the ¨memory¨ from before really a memory? Is that what happened to Luke? I feel like including that it was a dream rather than a memory had made me initially question the two. Often, when we get snippets of the Handmaid´s life in the former world, it’s usually in bed where she claims she’s either imagining, but is she imagining? Or is she just dreaming? I think something interesting about this story is that it’s hard to distinguish between the two and what’s really happening. Some parts may invalidate others, while others may validate them. This makes me still question what happened to Luke and her daughter, were they really caught crossing the border or was there more to it? Similarly, later on page 85 the Handmaid gives another story regarding her crossing of the border. ¨When we get to the border, we´re just going over on a day trip; the fake visas are for a day. Before that I´ll give her a sleeping pill so she´ll be asleep when we cross. That way she won’t betray us.¨ One thing that initially shocked me is that this is a completely different story from the one before, Luke is in the car not in the apartment with the cat. She is taking her car rather than swimming, why? IS this also a dream? I think the narrator makes it hard to distinguish to make the reader more immersed with the handmaid. THroughout the story, the Handmaid has a difficult time distinguishing between her imagination, her dreams, and what has actually happened. In which she would often make clear to the reader that she is remembering wrong as if she’s the one reading. In this case, the reader cannot understand once more which one is the real story. This also reminded me of the story we read at the beginning of the class, ¨Beginning¨ by Marget Atwood, where she would once again make different versions of the same story, so it makes me question how much of the Handmaid’s stories and memory of the past is honest rather than imagine and hoping that one or another happened, or maybe they are all the same story. Its really conflicting and I think the conflict that the author causes by giving us different stories to fill in the same gaps is what makes this story really immersive. We´re practically in the Handmaid´s mind in the sense that we cannot distinguish between fake and real, the same way that the Handmaid cannot. Another good example of this is the scene in which Moira escapes, she has no way to prove that this really occurred. She just happened to hear it through other people. In fact, for all she knows Moira can be already dead, but the Handmaid is hopeful for the ones she loves.

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. .

This drawing is a representation of a scene in “The Handmaid’s Tale” when the main character Offered is experiencing one of her memories while drifting away in her bed. She reminisces about the moments she would spend with her mom, specifically this moment illustrated is about a time when Offered and her mother were walking around in the park. She was handed a magazine with a naked woman on the cover. When she was young and innocent, she believed the naked woman was nothing, it was “Tarzan on the TV” but now as she reflects on her past experience, she now realizes that the woman hanging from the chains was more than a TV character.

Little Offred (pictured on the left) is casually reading the magazine she was just handed. She was positive about it, she thought it was a pretty woman swinging from vines. She had an innocent viewpoint on the image. Due to her being through all of the things she has been through in the last few years, such as creating life and participating in the acts to do so, older Offred (pictured on the right) no longer has an innocent viewpoint of the image. She now realizes that the image is sexual material, and is not meant for the eyes of children. Her first thought the moment she saw the image wasn’t to depict the nude woman, it was to use her imagination and creativity to envision something that she thought the image meant. Now that she has endless nights, lost in her thoughts, she now realizes the true meanings behind things.

“I looked at it with interest, it didn’t frighten me.”(38) Atwood added that quote to show to the readers that now, looking back if she had the knowledge that she has now, she would’ve questioned the image more and maybe been more frightened. She now realizes a naked woman hanging from a chain is not normal at all, and we realize through reading this book that nothing in the world of Gilead is normal.

Overall, I drew this image to depict the differences between younger Offred and current day Offred. It expresses the differences between how an innocent child might view something versus how a grown adult would view an image. This specific scene is so significant to the story’s structure because it helps the reader understand how different life experiences can impact your memories. There are many scenes in which Offred comes to realization with her past self, but this scene in particular not only represents Offred realizing her mistakes, but it is also a visualization of how innocence will start to go away as we age, and it will happen at an unpredictable moment. I drew the lively life of Little Offred, with color and vibrance to represent the child in her, but when drawing the older Offred that we all know so well, I drew the image with less innocence, less bright and cheerful colors overall to represent the depressing life that she is currently stuck in.

In chapter 7, Offred is talking to Moira, who said she did a paper on Date Rape. Offered says, “Date rape, I said, you’re so trendy. It sounds like some kind of dessert. Date Rape.” Following with Moria laughing at Offered for her “joke” and then telling Offered to grab her coat. The two then leave the building that they were in and go on about their day. Offred is viewed as having a dark sense of humor, which again, is seen in chapter 16, the Commander just finishes up with having sex with SJ (Serena Joy) and Offred, and Serena is extremely irritated about all of this. “He nods, then turns and leaves the room, closing the door with exaggerated care behind him, as if both of us are his ailing mother. There’s something hilarious about this, but I don’t dare laugh.” It is seen that Offred mostly views many situations as funny, while also expressing high discomfort. But what exactly is this? This is, to me, being in an uncomfortable situation but using laughter as a way to cope with the situation no matter how bad it is. For me, back when my Father left my life for years, my way of coping was laughing and joking about it until the pain went away. But the pain never really goes away, does it? No. As time moves on you really get adjusted to the situation but the pain never really leaves. I feel as if I relate to Offred, in some situations she can control her laughter, but other situations, she just can’t because it’s uncontrollable. I know that feeling of feeling confused; not wanting to laugh but instead it just comes out unexpectedly and then you have everyone looking at you as if you’re crazy or a heartless person. The day when my cat passed away, I was hurt, my chest felt heavy and I felt tears streaming down my cheeks. My hands were shaking as I held my small kitten Salem in my arms, his cold body resting within them. I stared down at him with a frown– but laughter followed. At the time I felt so bad for doing that. Why was I even laughing? I didn’t know. I knew I felt hurt, I knew that I didn’t want him to die, I knew that I tried my absolute best to save him– so I was just as confused as my family. He choked on a metal piece of– I don’t even know, or at least that’s what we assumed because that’s what it sounded like. I realized later on that I reacted that way because I was nervous, numb, and sad all at once. I think it was because that whole situation was unbelievable to me. I never experienced anything like it before; hence why I would laugh at it I guess. This goes for anything, the more I laughed at atrocious things happening, the more I came to the realization that this was nervous laughter, uncomfortable laughter, a coping mechanism that only I could understand. I remember when my sister talked about a woman who was raped, murdered, and then thrown into the dumpster. We all laughed, but it wasn’t a laugh like “oh this is funny”, we all looked at each other with confusion and shame. This goes back to the question of why? And I remember my oldest sister saying that this was a nervous condition, because her whole side of the family has it. And I just took those words from her and now I’m here. Sometimes, even when things aren’t funny, I laugh at them. Nervous condition. That was always my excuse for everything. But now, I genuinely believe it’s because I’m uncomfortable. There’s no way to reverse the situation, there’s no way to stop it, and when you have no control over it, all you can do is laugh. Just like Offred, she has nothing that she can do in that situation BUT laugh. I think the main reason I relate to her is because– not only do I not have control over those situations, laughing is the only amount of power I feel subjected to in those situations. It’s a weird thing to do, a weird way to express having power, but you find power in the small things when you realize how much power you really are restricted from having. I get it now.

Blank Time

Does the world take time for granted?

Imagine yourself falling asleep reading a book in the early afternoon and waking up later that night. You realize you lost the page you were reading and say, “I’ll finish reading tomorrow,” close the book, and go to bed. That’s what happens when we have no sympathy for time because we assume that time will continue to move just for us. People make appointments, meeting times, events, etc based on the time that is given to us each day. But what if something changed? What if nobody knew what time it was and all we knew was when it got dark or when it got light? How would the world transform back to the past while already used to the future?

“They were giving us a chance to get used to blank time,” (Pg. 70)

I remember reading that quote one night and being confused on what the author meant. I felt like it was such a special quote but made to be skipped over so quickly. I wanted to demonstrate a visual image of this quote. It doesn’t give us a particular image to imagine in our heads but gives us the freedom to create the image ourselves. For my image, I wanted to make something that represented the quote but also the book as well. I drew the characters of the book to represent what book the quote was from.

In the image you can see four handmaid’s standing in a line next to a clock. They are supposedly looking at the clock while standing there doing nothing. They all have the same facial expressions and are wearing the same cloak with their “wings,” or hats. The clock is a fully working analog clock but is missing the hands that tell you what time it is. I removed the hands on the clock to represent the part of my quote that says “blank time.” Even though the handmaids live in a similar society that we live in, they are put in a community that doesn’t give them access to the normal world. Everything is reconstructed in the ways the program wants it to be. Now this image doesn’t actually happen in the book but I wanted to make an example of what the handmaid’s feel like in this separate society. They are looking at a clock with no way of telling the time so they are expected to just guess what time of the day it is. I feel like this can also be interpreted as they might know the time but they are convinced that they are being a handmaid for the rest of their lives. It’s a scary concept but it could be the truth because the book has made it seem like it’s very difficult to escape this program of some sort.

I want those to look at this quote and imagine what life would be without time. Would it drive you crazy or will you get used to it?

“I’d like to pass by the church,” (30)

My mom and I have very random conversations. They are so sporadic and unpredictable, but so are ideas, so are the feelings we have and the drive we accumulate to understand the truth, to make our own truths. This is why I never know when a late-night TV show will turn into a discussion about religion, a quick trip to refill my water will flow into a question regarding climate change, or a “hello, how was your day” into gun law. These conversations are always insightful no matter how unexpected they are, our most recent being a very current and timely topic in regards to American politics and our current class reading, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. In this instance we were having a family breakfast, and while cleaning the dishes a conversation regarding abortion rights was somehow brought up between my mother and me. This wasn’t a back-and-forth, just an exchange of ideas, both ours and others. We discussed the current turmoil around the topic, the many drastically different ideas and some of the effects of this range of opinions.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, abortion is also a subject with opinions, but not a subject with a range of opinions. In The Handmaid’s Tale you are not just prosecuted for being involved with an abortion, you are executed. During our conversations, I couldn’t help but think of this scene in chapter six where multiple doctors are hung and left on display for having assisted in abortions in the past, it’s written “Beside the main gateway there are six more bodies hanging, by the necks, their hands tied in front of them, their heads in white bags tipped sideways onto their shoulders” (32) and “The men wear white coats, like those worn by doctors or scientists.” (32) In our conversations a large part of our time was spent on the current laws that some states have in place where doctors are at risk if they give abortions, they can have the full force of the law brought down on them, less so than the doctors in the Republic of Gilead but not far off. Although current law in the United States does not include the death penalty for abortions some politicians are leaning that way, leaning toward Gilead.

Our conversation continued onto topics such as the information around abortions and whose opinions were really influencing, the media, and the public’s opinion on this topic. In Gilead, much like in America, many portray abortions as a shameful procedure, one that should be illegal and thought of as immoral and counterintuitive to the goals they have. In The Handmaid’s Tale people who have performed abortions are labeled evil, they are thought to be and portrayed as “war criminals” (33) and put on display to warn others of their “mistakes”, they make it obvious to the public their “wrongdoings” by having “a placard around his neck to show why he has been executed: a drawing of a human fetus.” (32) I and my mom brought up this idea of labels and how it’s very hard in a country with so many opinions to label things clearly and yet people do, they label abortions as “evil”, “illegal”, and “sinful” and the people who perform them as “murderers” just as they do in The Handmaid’s Tale.

My mother was very adamant about the fact that abortions are a right many people would like to take away and that’s only the beginning. Many want to defund women’s healthcare as a whole, taking away things such as birth control. This idea forces a comparison with that of Gilead, a society that has taken away the rights of women in order to “protect” them and themselves. In our conversation my mother had talked about her fears about the future and as a person who has read The Handmaid’s Tale throughout her entire life how she has seen America and its abortion laws and related women’s healthcare getting scarily reflective of some of the aspects of the dystopian novel.

In some states, women have died because they have no access to an abortion. My mother told me about a specific case that had only just recently happened where a woman had a miscarriage and was unable to get the proper procedure to save her because of some American abortions laws that prevented her from doing so and because of that she died. In the book it is mentioned “No woman in her right mind, these days, would seek to prevent a birth…” (33) But in many cases, women do not have a choice, it is either do or don’t, die or be persecuted.

Our morning, post-breakfast conversation was important for both of us. It gave me a look into my moms opinion and the opinions of many who hold similar values and it gave her the current generation’s opinion. But it also made me realize that no matter how dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale seems, there are some scary similarities and possibilities in America that reflect the values of the Republic of Gilead. This fiction is becoming reality and I see it in my life and in my county and we need to take our next steps very carefully in order to avoid this dystopian situation.