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Dinajda Dollani

Ms. Pahomov

College English

October 13, 2023

The unspoken rules between women are a concept often seen in The Handmaid’s Tale, but also in our current society. Offred remembered “the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: Don’t open the 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.”(24) In our society, women are always wary of men; carefully choosing what they wear, being aware of their surroundings constantly, and watching the way they stand or look at someone. It’s a well-known rule that women shouldn’t be out at night and always have to be accompanied by someone to go anywhere. All these rules amount to the same concept; don’t stand out and blend in with the world as if you’re just air itself. These rules are widely known but no one ever says them out loud because they are considered common sense. They are rules that are learned by women when they’re young. Many grow up being aware of their surroundings and careful of the people around them. Often women listen and watch all around them, taking in stories and experiences, and using them to establish the rules. It’s like finding pieces of a puzzle. All women share these rules, and though they are never spoken, they are all agreed upon. These unspoken rules are created in each woman’s mind in order to keep them safe. These rules are a tactic of survival, deployed by women in their daily lives to stay safe.

The Aunts in The Handmaid’s Tale use these prior worries over safety as a way to brainwash women to follow this new society. The safety concern was one way the Aunts convinced women that they should be happy with their new life in Gilead. In a way, many of those unspoken rules don’t apply anymore because of the new world. Although, this does not mean women are in a position where they don’t still need unspoken rules. In the book, it’s stated, “‘No,’ the woman says. I don’t know this woman, she wasn’t at the Center with me, though I’ve seen her, shopping. ‘But I’ll watch out for you.’ “(124) Even though the Handmaids don’t know each other, they know to quietly ask for information and keep in mind what the others wanted to know in case they can help. The Handmaids are united through common interactions and knowledge. The new situation they’re living through requires women to create new unspoken rules. This helps them survive once again, though the danger is now less physical and more mental. They use these new rules to be able to get through these new circumstances, relying on each other as much as before.

The Handmaids are able to communicate with each other and reveal their true intentions which others would not be able to grasp quite as easily. “‘I’d like to pass by the church,’ says Ofglen, as if piously. ‘All right,’ I say, though I know as well as she does what she’s really after.”(30) The Handmaids have to complete their duties in pairs so they can tell on the other if they try to rebel in any way. Offred knows that Ofglen does not actually care about the church, meaning she could easily say something to get her in trouble but she doesn’t. Instead, she acts like she’s unaware of her intention and goes along with her, giving Ofglen a chance to do something she wants. Offred understands Ofglen and decides to help her. This is another unspoken rule among women; being able to talk to each other without talking. Women decide to go out of their way to help each other, supporting one another silently, though the support is always recognized by the other. Women do this because they understand each other on a level that others can’t. “She hesitates, as if to say something more, but then she turns away and walks down the street. I watch her, She’s like my own reflection, in a mirror from which I am moving away.”(45) Offred recognizes Ofglen as a reflection of herself, seeing how similar they are even without much knowledge on each other. Many women see each other in this way. To help out another woman is to help out yourself. You understand them how you wish you were understood. You support them silently, just like you wish to be supported silently. We make these rules and we don’t speak them, for they can be understood without words.

I decided to focus my artwork on a brief event in chapter 8. On Offred and Ofglen walk home, a funeral of three women – an Econowife, a mourner, and her friend possibly – pass by them. “The first one is the bereaved, the mother; she carries a small black jar. From the size of the jar you can tell how old it was when it foundered, inside her, flowed to its death”[page 44]. I want to draw the jars of dead babies. I imagine it to be foggy inside the jar instead of a solid black color. I drew some texture inside the jar so it looked like particles instead of a smooth, solid black liquid.

I drew small puddles of blood to resemble death. I could only imagine how they got the dead baby out of the women. Since people of Gilead only do natural birth, I doubt they use any medication to help ease pain for the women if they were in pain before or after their birth.

I wanted to use a vibrant red color to represent the recurring red symbol in the book. “Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us” [page 8]. Red represents blood which is what makes a person. So red is in you. Why are Handmaids the only ones wearing red? The symbol of the color red is unclear but I do have many theories. Much like the theory I recently stated, Red is resembling bodies, but bodies who are capable of getting pregnant. I do think it could be an idea but I also feel as though blood has a negative connotation. The war could be a factor. I think blood on your hands (murder) is a bad thing if it is for the wrong cause. “Sometimes they’ll be there for days, until there’s a new batch, so as many people as possible will have the chance to see them.” For men to be hanged to show Gilead’s power. The murder is on Gilead, not the people who hanged them on the Wall. The bloody men on the Wall is okay but blood is to show fear or instill fear.

I drew a table in the background to show how people of Gilead don’t know where dead babies go, let alone dead people. It is an interesting concept in the book where they’re aren’t really a lot of old people in the world. I imagine it’s like leaving something on a table in your house. If someone else walks by, the person may wonder whose it is. There is a select amount to choose from. I don’t know why I thought of it like that. Pregnancy is not common and celebrated largely in Gilead. So if someone sees a black jar, there is only a select group of people who may claim the jar. So it is a process of elimination and determining the timeline to which they may figure out who the baby belongs to. This probably doesn’t make any sense but that is how I thought of it. I do hope they bury the baby but they could also repurpose it in a way (fuel..?).

Overall, I really wanted people to focus on the jars and I put Gilead right next to the jars on purpose so viewers can see what Gilead is doing to premature babies.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the narrator described a scene when the Commander was reading to a group of women and all eyes were on him. “To be a man, watched by women.”, she said on page 87, as she went on questioning what was going on through his mind as he was being observed so closely by women. As a woman in the real world, this is an image that’s strange and a little uncomfortable to try and visualize. When I thought about this quote, the first image that popped up in my head was a painting done by Waldemar von Kazak called “Daily Portrait of a Woman”. It shows a group of pigs looking at a woman sitting in the subway. When I first saw this artwork, I felt a bit uncomfortable and the absence of the woman’s face made me feel like I was the one being watched. I wanted to portray this in my drawing.

While it’s the complete opposite situation, I still thought about feelings of awkwardness, fear, and uncomfortability. Offred also thought about similar feelings when trying to decipher what the Commander might’ve been feeling in that situation. “To have them thinking, He can’t do it, he won’t do, he’ll have to do, this last as if he were a garment, out of style and shoddy, which must nevertheless be put on because there’s nothing else available.” (page 87). She compared him to a garment, an object, which is never really a comparison one makes to a man. She’s putting him in her shoes. However, there’s still a very clear power dynamic between the Commander and the women that makes it hard to really understand what is going on through the Commander’s head. The Commander holds all the power over everyone else in the household. He’s looked up to, so it’s hard to think of him as feeling scared of being watched because that would mean that the women hold power over him, and that’s not the case in Gilead. In the real world, women are often observed by men in a way that belittles women and creates many negative emotions, which makes Waldemar von Kazak’s painting feel so familiar.

I have a clear understanding of what being watched by men feels like. I know the sort of feelings it creates, but what does it mean when it’s a man that’s being watched? I couldn’t draw a face for him because I don’t know what he’s truly feeling, but I wanted to see if the women I drew created a different feeling than the feeling I got from seeing the pigs in Waldemar von Kazak’s painting. I also chose to only use the color red because red is a harsh and intimidating color. Gilead is plain and colorless, and still, the Handmaids wear this color that sticks out and catches attention. Trying to visualize what the Commander could actually see, the color red and the faces of the women were the two things that were clear in my head so these were the things I chose to show in my drawing.

-Shepherd of This Flock by JT Music

In the book, “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood we get introduced to Gilead, a very authoritative religious society. Like many authoritative societies, people are made into symbols. Those that don’t adhere to the social conditioning are executed and used as a symbol to all those who dare step out of line. This is no more apparent than on page 33, as our main character Offred stares at the bodies of the people deemed rebellious by the nation, “These men, we’ve been told, are like war criminals. It’s no excuse that what they did was legal at the time: their crimes are retroactive. They have committed atrocities and must be made into examples, for the rest. “ This idea of punishing sinners to wake up God’s children, is a main theme in the song, “Shepherd of This Flock” by JT Music. The song revolves around a cult religious group taking over a small town, and the chorus alludes to the group’s main ideology:

“The nonbelievers sowed their seeds and all they’ll reap is flames Judgment’s coming, and my God will set me free from chains Make your confessions, pay your penance, in my sweet embrace I’ll shake my people from their sleep, so they can see his grace”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRhjMcjg7vQ

-Time in a bottle by Jim Croce

As we know, living in Gilead can be oppressive to the mind. People are no longer people, but ranks and cogs in a larger machine. Offred mentions this numerous times throughout the book, on how she doesn’t feel as much as she used to, the keyword is ‘used to ‘. She keeps herself sane by living out her past life and romance with Luke in the chambers of her mind. On page 97 we see her hunger for his love, “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;” By remembering him, she can once again feel human. Time in a bottle connects back to reminiscing past love, and wishing for life to have been different. She uses these memories as a way of escaping, thinking of something that is entirely human:

“If I could make days last forever If words could make wishes come true I’d save every day like a treasure, and then Again, I would spend them with you”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h1davKgBYM

-Digital Silence by Peter McPoland

The news plays an important role in Gilead. It’s a glimpse into the outside world, even if fabricated or completely false, it’s a refreshing sight. Unsurprisingly, the news is used as another propaganda tool by the higher ups in the government. The news anchor tries deluding the people watching that everything is under control, on page 83, “What he’s telling us, his level smile implies, is for our own good.”- “You must go to sleep, like good children.” They are trying to delude the people into believing their brand of truth. In the song the lyrics are trying to wake the masses up to show them that the media is not their friend. That you are being tricked into believing the lies you’ve been fed.

“Why don’t you get it? Can’t you get it? Understand They’re gonna execute the mother to elevate the man They’re gonna propagate the killer, eliminate the youth”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8CYUW7HpoE

-Cherry Bomb by The Runaways

A major theme in the book is complacency in the system. Many of the women in Gilead no longer fight back on the gender roles and situations they are put into. Gilead was successful in making women too scared to even think about escaping, all except Moira. Ever since we were introduced to her at the red center, we know there’s something different about her. She wears a lot of punk rock clothes and had seemingly escaped the first round of capture. After that she continues to openly defy the Aunts. This results in beatings like on page 91 “Afterwards she could not walk for a week, her feet would not fit into her shoes, they were too swollen.” This all culminated to her escaping the society. The song Cherry Bomb, encaptures her defiance of the expectations laid out by the system. In this, she is one if not the only woman, who escapes the machine.

“Hello, daddy, hello, mom I’m your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb Hello world I’m your wild girl I’m your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2ws6vMFF3c

-My War by Shinsei Kamattechan

This whole book is based on real life events, and thinking through the lens of ‘what if?’ We find out that Gilead is a future version of America on page 4, “and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S.” In real life there’s a real fear in the religious right, and that fear is not unfounded. There are certain policies and overturnings such as Roe V Wade, that could be explained by the growing influence of Christian Conservatism in American politics. However in this book it turned over into an actual war. The rights of the public are stripped away, and children, especially poc children such as on page 83, “Resettlement of the Children of Ham is continuing on schedule,” are being taken and segregated. This relates to the song’s pre-chorus, which talks about angels or people who are supposed to be righteous subjecting the people with devilish intent. The christian conservatives see themselves as in the right but are not doing the people right. As a result the children and the future of the generation are suffering the consequences of war:

“Angels playing disguised with devil’s faces Children cling to their coins squeezing out their wisdom Angels planning disguised with devil’s faces Children cling on to their very last coins”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK8PKIiAbrM

As the maids stand in a circle, they point and blame Janine for being what would be known as unwomen. This is after she openly talked about how she was raped at fourteen, giving her an unwanted pregnancy which led her to have an abortion, something that was her full right. In the society of Gilead, pregnancies are sacred, if either the mom (maid) wants it or not. This secret which was told by Janine herself, brought her a sort of consequence. As she kneeled down, with her hands behind her back Martha could see. Everyone surrounds her and starts to chant, “Her fault” as they all point at her. “Last week, Janine burst into tears. Aunt Helena made her kneel at the front of the classroom. Hands behind her back, where we could all see her, her red face and dripping nose. Her hair was dull blond, her eyelashes so light they seemed not there, the lost eyelashes of someone who’d been in a fire. Burned eyes. She looked disgusting: weak, squirmy, blotchy, pink, like a newborn mouse. None of us wanted to look like, ever. For a moment, even though we knew what was being done to her, we despised her” (Pg.72) This scene demonstrates and shows a lot about what the book is all about. Women mentally abusing women, women being controlled by a society that denies their right to their bodies, and shames them if they oppose this new society’s ideologies. But no one is to blame these maids who shame Janine because they have been shamed/scared in order to follow the established beliefs, of being objects to give birth to children. For my first Lit log, I demonstrated this scene, in order to show the visual representation of how Janine would have looked and felt. In my drawing, she kneels down in front of six maids all pointing at her with their red long dresses that cover every inch of their bodies. Whitecaps cover their heads and eyes. I shade the sides of the paper in dark and in a triangle shape leaving blank up into where Janine is kneeling. This is to demonstrate the attention that she is being given. But not the good type of attention, the one where she is being stared at and it makes her feel uncomfortable around all the maids, chanting at her about how she’s a crybaby. As well as the shading of the drawing, the maid’s dress color is more light red, meanwhile Jenina is bright red in order to show her apart from the others. To put her in the spotlight of the drawing, her hands can also be seen behind her, giving the viewer perspective of her hands, in a way we are the ones who see how she’s helpless. It’s a cycle of fear, Janine is humiliated, scared, meanwhile as Aunt Lydia states in the passage. “ You are an example”, an example to all the other women to not go against the beliefs. Especially when it comes to abortion, where the punishment is death, for both the maid and the doctor who decides to help. The maids will know not to commit the same “crime” or they will have to face a punishment.

This piece is of the scene in chapter 13, of the bathroom stalls with Moira and Offred. The two of them go into stalls next to each other so they can speak to one another. This scene represents the only safe place at the school where the maids could talk with each other. Without the Aunts hearing in on the conversations. They spent their time there to just be able to talk. With these stalls being one of the only places they could connect; through a small hole in the wall of the two bathroom stalls, a relic of the past. Offred mentions this on (pg.73) “In the wood there’s a small hole, at the back, next to the wall, about waist height, souvenir of some previous vandalism or legacy of an ancient voyeur.” This small hole in the wall is the only reason they were able to connect so I made it the center of the drawing. Though the stalls are next to each other in the book I wanted to put them side to side to be able to see the characters.

There is a slight yellow background since the bathroom is white enamel with yellow stains. To the right is Offred in her red maid outfit waiting in the stall while Moria sits on the stall to the left. Since this place used to be a boys bathroom and the urinals were left there I decided to put one inside the drawing as well. I put a shower in the background of the drawing to show what brought the idea of why Offred thinks why women don’t have to have to prove they are women to one another. Offred exclaims this on,(pg.73) “Why don’t women have to prove to one another that they are women?”. For the same reason in Offred’s thoughts there is a small blue badge with a “W” in it to represent the badge for women.

There are other thoughts going through their minds where Offred is thinking how she needs a cigarette, and Moira is thinking of these random letters to represent how she thinks the school and the people here are loony and are in a loony bin. There is a small symbol in the top right of a ear being crossed out to represent that the Aunts cannot hear them in here and they are able to talk freely. To the top there are windows, one covered with bars and one without. The window with bars represents how Moria sees this place and the other represents how Offred sees the school. Moria sees the school as a prison where she is locked in, while Offred doesn’t see it the same way as Moria so her window has no bars.

To the far left of the drawing next to Moria’s stall there is an imprint of where the mirrors that used to be bathroom used to be. I drew the mirror in the fashion to also represent how Offred saw it as a baby coffin. Though Moira has already lost her clothes and should be wearing the red dress I decided to dress her in the clothes she was wearing when she came in and would usually wear because she does not see this dress as herself and is constantly fighting back against it.

You sit at home; relaxing and watching the television, or something of the such, but then you hear a knock on the door. You stand up and walk to the door and peer through the peephole and see two men. They are well dressed in a white short-sleeved button up with a small black name tag with golden lettering, in their hands are a black leather-bound book which also has golden letters debossed into it. You sigh and open the door slightly ajar and one of the men steps forward; with a grin on his face he says, “Would you like to hear about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ?” This is a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormon Church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a fringe sect of Christianity bordering on a cult, it has around 17 million members world-wide, with 6 million members in the US alone. To a majority of people Mormons are just the butt of jokes, be it in performances like the Book of Mormon, or in the many episodes of TV shows that poke fun at them. And much of the Mormon ‘religion’ can be quite humorous from the outside but beneath the strange exterior and the kind-hearted missionaries is a much darker reality. A reality that those who have lived, and are living through know very well. One of the most important things to Mormons is family, to Momons having a family is a status symbol. In Mormon culture the mere act of having a child is pious and ‘saintly,’ to have a family is righteous, the children themselves and how they are treated come second. This view of family further bleeds into the view of women themselves in Mormonism. WIthin the church a lot of people view women as just potential wives/mothers and nothing more, this has also led to women view themselves in this light.

Within The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood the society of Gilead views on family and women in a way very akin to Mormonism. Within the dystopian society of Gilead many women are viewed as nothing more than just a vessel to have children; objects to be used. This is particularly true for the handmaids as their primary usage in Gilead is to be surrogate mothers. Throughout the book a particular quote from the Bible is repeated and is used as almost a motto for the handmaids, “Give me children, or else I die.” To the handmaids this passage is far more true than one would expect. If a handmaid can’t have children they are sent to the elusive colonies; on page 61 Offred states, “He could fake the tests, report me for cancer, for infertility, have me shipped off to the Colonies.” Both the reader and Offred know very little about these Colonies but for all intents and purposes and in the eyes of the handmaid’s it is like dying and you are sent there if you cannot have children. While this is a more extreme viewpoint then most Mormons there are Fundamentalist Mormons where this perspective on the role of women is more close to their own.

As stated before, bearing a child is somewhat of a status symbol in Mormon culture. If you have children or if you or your spouse is pregnant you are treated with more respect and dignity. If you do not or are not planning on having children, especially if you are a younger person (18-25), church members will tend to think lower of you and will most definitely talk behind your back. In Gilead it is much the same, though as per usual in a much more extreme manner. Women who are pregnant tend to be looked upon in a better light or even with jealousy by other handmaids. On page 26 it says, “One of them is vastly pregnant; […]. There is a shifting in the room, a murmur, an escape of breath; despite ourselves we turn our heads, blatantly, to see better; […]. She’s a magic presence to us, an object of envy and desire, we covet her. She’s a flag on a hilltop,” Because she was pregnant she was deemed as better and a symbol of what could be done. Having children in this world is the most important thing she can do, it is the primary function of women in the eyes of Gilead.

From the outside the Mormon religion and church is a kind of mysterious yet funny group of people. They seem innocent and kind enough, but dig a little deeper and there is a more grim truth. If you look online you’ll see many stories of how and why people have left the church. The fundamental beliefs of Mormonism are based around sexist and misogynistic ideas. It is okay to laugh at the funny aspects of Mormonism but it is also important to remember that there are people suffering within it. The Handmaid’s Tale is a cautionary tale of what absolute religious power could bring and I am confident if the LDS Church was in that position it would be not too dissimilar to Gilead.

                 Patience - Guns N’ Roses 

I feel like this song is the embodiment of Offred’s heart and soul as she looks out and wonders for Luke’s well being. But then there is the ever longing thought of if she can barely live like this not even knowing or having any attachment to the commander or Serena Joy. But with patience we as both the reader and her as the main protagonist have to have patience as she builds up her resistance for her chance at power. On pg 122. She touches on this with her words being “I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this is what I want.” She is alone in her new life as she has been rewired and made to think differently in this society that is meant to only keep her down. In the song “Patience” they get the message across that you merely need to have patience even in the hard times. The harmonious melody and soulful lyrics of “Patience” evoke the feelings of nostalgia, longing, and hope. The three feelings that race her mind in the book with her having many flashbacks such as her escaping, her life before being handmaid and Luke. Longing represents the everlasting effect she causes as she looks for something bigger and better than Gilead and it’s important because doesn’t communicate these desires at all. It’s unsimple as she meant concealing and can’t get these feelings off as she puts on a fake smile. But then there is hope instilled in her as she feels this as if dim light is flickering the dark waiting to be turned on. With her seemingly getting on the Commander’s good side as they play, scrabble and indulge in meetings more often than not creating the hope that one by one Gilead can be freed from the shackles of men. But first there must be patience as she perceives it coming as she deals with these emotions head on.

               Helmet - Steve Lacy 

Steve lacy creates the heartbreak anthem as he is expressing his frustration and dissatisfaction in a relationship that isn’t fulfilling them. “But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. “Being used as an animal in the story she wants to let go of her life in Gilead as she is stuck there without a choice. They realize they need to be true to themselves and let go of their partner. Despite the rewiring efforts to change her, she often remembers and comes to the realization that she will never get over him as she is presented with a new lover. In the song we get to see Steve Lacy go back and forth with these thoughts as he sings “You just gotta let me go as I’m tryna let go of you.” This verse is a representation of the emotions felt as it’s just her vs her fighting a mental battle as she tries to mix the old with the new.

              La Vida Es Fria - Josh Joshua  

Les via es Fria is the perfect song to fit the whole identity of Offred and her search for why the world is so cold. In her world Luke was still her lover and her child was still in her arms as it looked upon the sky but in this new world there’s no more Luke and there’s no more her baby as her life has been Stripped Away and she’s been rewired. With the song la Vida is Fria we get a longing lover still searching for the answers to why the world is so cold but as no one wants to work it out he is left stuck still yearning for love that is gone. As in the chapters that go on and on and on about her flashbacks and her Nostalgia trips the memories relay of her being happy and as her life in Gilead progresses she still wants something that is going and that’s something that makes her whole. In the song Jason Joshua sings “La vida es fria, Her heart is turned to stone, Nobody wants to stay together, Nobody wants to make it better.” As he sings these lyrics we can compare what life is like in Gilead to the lyrics in “La Vida Es Fria.” In Chapter 23 we see Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn’t really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. All the more as she recognizes the years of pain she has endured she still knows of the situation she is currently living in and that’s what makes her Fria to.

                  Somebody To Love - Queen

This song is quite the build up as a damaged, depressed and ultimately longing for love Freddie Mercury is leaving his sorrows. With the change of seasons and the book heading into the spring we will get with it spring weather. Cloudy, Rainy and most importantly the sun. For instance, Freddie finds himself experiencing dread when he wakes up in the morning and indeed can barely stand beholding his own image in the mirror just as Offred can’t either. With that triple threat we get Offred’s coming out party as she wallows from the depressed rains and eventually into the loving arms of the commander as she looks to create a power struggle. With her planting her seeds in the love triangle between herself, Serena Joy and the Commander it’s not like they’re going to get along better. So this is how Offred is embodied through the song ‘Somebody to Love” as it says,” They say I’m going crazy. They say I got a lot of water in my brain. I have no common sense. (He’s got.) I got nobody left.” As Offred is always in her own mind she’s in the Maze of Gilead as she doesn’t have any control over her own focus. As in chapter the seasons changing is touched on perfectly described as it reads “I once had a garden. I can remember the smell of the turned earth, the plump shapes of bulbs held in the hands, fullness, the dry rustle of seeds through the fingers.” We get this glimpse of her control being lost. Evans, she doesn’t have her original lover she still wants someone who is looking for love as she is not her own “self,”

               Wolves/Frank’s Track - Kanye West 

In this song, Kanye explores the complexities of human relationships and the raw emotions that come with them. “The Republic Of Gilead ” dapple with politics & godly traditions being the driving force for its success. As the melodic tune about love and loss makes the listener question what makes emotional attachment so important for a lover? Just as the Handmaid’s Tale brings up love and loss constantly as characters have scars of fear, hope, and love. A quote about the times being in love is expressed through this quote as it reads,”We thought we had such problems. How did we know we were happy?”As Offred and Kanye West don’t get to reminisce on what certain moments could have been or would have been as they look to the past to get something that is never coming back. Lines such as “Lost and found out” and “Cause I know God’s got us in for a greater plan” speak to a sense of resilience and hope in the face of adversity. Donda was Knaye’s Mother, and losing her was devastating to him as he was never the same and he can’t seem to forget the pain nor the loss of his mother.

In Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the term “Red Center” refers to a facility where women are trained and indoctrinated to become Handmaids in the Republic of Gilead. Gilead is a society in which a regime has overthrown the United States government. The regime is based on a strict interpretation of religious texts and enforces an overall rule where women have very limited rights and are assigned specific roles. We can see this in the first chapter of the book when the women are limited to talking to one another and will do anything to break the system. I drew this drawing since I wanted to capture the overall aspect of being trapped in a loop and the setting that I drew consists of the gym the reader gets introduced to and all the beds that take up the space. This space was once a gym for students and since the beds take up the space it no longer looks like a gym but more like a prison. The eye on the wall symbolizes the overall people in power that are above the handmaids that watch over them.The red dots leading away from the bed are footsteps of the main character trying to be different and leaving this so called loop. When I drew this I wanted to get the whole setting in the final aspect so i used shading by my hands and also other paper. This shading aspect makes the room look dark and sucludede which the reader can find out about early on in the book that the gym is dark and gloomy. When drawing the red dots I wanted to make the whole art piece black and white so that the eye and the red dots(footprints) stood out towards the people who saw it. The place in the book is a training facility for the Handmaids, women who are valued only for their fertility. Women are subjected to intense indoctrination, both physical and psychological. They are trained to accept their roles as Handmaids, stripped of their previous identities, names, and personal possessions. This ideal form the book is shown in my art since everyone has the same bed and is stuck in the same room that could be called a prison.This place symbolizes the systematic dehumanization and control of women in the society of Gilead. It illustrates the harsh methods the regime employs to suppress any form of dissent and maintain control over women’s bodies and reproductive capabilities. The experiences that these handmaids go through serve as a traumatic foundation for them, shaping their submission and compliance with the oppressive regime.

Throughout “The Handmaid’s Tale” Offred reflects on the pivotal people of her past and is left with many questions about where they are now. In particular, she doesn’t know anything about where her husband Luke is, ever since she’s been taken and made a handmaid. On page 166 Offred says, “But I believe in all of them, all three versions of Luke… whatever the truth is, I will be ready for it.” I resonate with this on a much smaller scale, but it’s still a very present feeling in my life. Whether it’s friends or family, I always find myself thinking about the future, particularly in a stressful and negative way. There are only a certain amount of outcomes that make sense, and I need to prepare myself for them. For example, when my parents don’t pick up the phone I give them about ten to fifteen minutes and then ring again. If they don’t answer the second time then my mind starts to go to the worst. I probably think this way because I watched too much true crime growing up, but now these thoughts are ingrained in my mind, and I just have to sit and wait to see if my worst fears are really coming true. Offred doesn’t have the same luxury I have though, there are no cell phones, and no one else you can call go check on your loved ones. She just has to sit with her thoughts and hope for the best. She considers asking others to keep an eye out on page 124 but eventually says, “… there would be no point asking about Luke. He wouldn’t be where any of these women would be likely to see him.” If I were placed in her situation I don’t think I could deal with the lack of closure, my mind would be constantly running, and asking questions. I’m grateful every day for modern-day technology and how it can keep me in contact with my loved ones, I truly don’t know what I would do without it. Offred has these moments though, when she can truly reflect and think on how her life and the world have changed. On page 37 she says, “But the night is my time out. Where should I go? Somewhere good.” It is at this moment that Offred looks back on the good times she had with her best friend Moira, but it quickly takes a dark turn. She starts thinking about her missing daughter on page 39 and says, “But then what happens, but then what happens? I know I lost time… You’ve killed her…” When reading this, I realized that this happens to me too. The night really is the only time people are truly left with their thoughts, but sometimes that’s just not what I need. When I lie down, I’ll start thinking about something good, like a happy memory, or something I’m excited about in the future, but slowly I’ll start to stress out, it can be over the future and things I have to do, or it can be about something I regret having done that now is haunting me. The worst thing though is when I start freaking out if maybe the door isn’t locked, or I left my key in the door. So of course I have to run downstairs, make sure everything is locked up, and remind myself that it’s all in my head. Then I go back upstairs, now wired with stress, and stare at the ceiling or scroll on my phone until I eventually relax from something my own mind has caused me. Offred’s stressful reflections on her past and her anxiousness about the future are something that I deal with as well. Our situations aren’t similar and we are living in two very different worlds, but I understand the uneasiness that she deals with on an everyday basis. When your mind is running, it’s hard to get it to stop. There is really nothing to feel calm about because everything can change so quickly. Something can happen that can completely change your life, and you will have no inkling of it until it actually happens. That’s why Offred and I both live our lives in stress. We’ve had these things happen to us which cause us to look at the world differently. It’s hard to live in the present and be grateful for what is going on when you are always stressing about the future or reflecting on your past.

In the first chapter, Margaret Atwood says “ in their red shoes, flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing. The red gloves are lying on the bed. I pick them up, and pull them onto my hands, finger by finger. Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us.” While the book may seem disconnected from the real world there are many explanations of similar dress codes being used in the real world. The most famous example of this may be the Taliban however I think that a more prudent expansion would be the country of Iran. In Iran, the dress code is for “women to have their legs covered down until the ankles and wear loose tunics or coats that cover their lower waist and have long sleeves.” While the dress code is not as severe as it once was under other dictatorships the potential result could be for you to end up to 10 years in prison. The idea of a region-wide dress code is not unique to Iran. It is very common in religion to have a section on how you should dress and what you can wear. This is going to be more common in theories where the state is a religion. Just like Gilead, the government of Iran uses religion to institute the dress code in their society. All three of the main Abrahamic religions have some sort of verse about how to dress conservatively and be okay in the eyes of god. For example, in Christianity, the bible says “… also that the women should dress themselves in moderate clothing with reverence and self-control, not with their hair braided or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes …” In a movie that looks just like the bible the Quran says “Revering God is the most important guideline for women when they choose their dress. The righteous reverent woman will know that God is always watching her, she will therefore dress modestly and in line with God’s requirements for decency and morality.” This idea of the need to portray a form of humbleness and sanction through dressing is taken to a new extreme in The Handmaid’s Tale. There are not just restrictions on the people’s dress but as stated they have their own “uniforms”. You can tell it is not just with the lowly handmaids but also with the Aunts who were in a brown uniform and the blue wives. It also makes the appearance of knowing what role you have in society. One of the clearest examples of this is when Atwood says “Frowning, she tears out three tokens and hands them to me. Her face might be kind if she would smile. But the frown isn’t personal: it’s the red dress she disapproves of, and what it stands for. She thinks I may be catching a disease or any form of bad luck.” The conflict in that shows the roles of the society and just how low certain women go. Another thing that Iran and Gilad have in common with the dress code is just how important the code is for a revolution. We know that there were ordinary protests that got shot at. This can also be compared to the recent protests that happened when Mahsa Amini was killed by the Iran secret police. What happened was a large-scale protest that was crushed after a decent amount of time. We can infer that a similar thing did happen in the early days of the revolution where the protesters were shot at and killed. The dress code was a huge element in the Iran protests with women burning their hijabs. We did not hear things like this in Gilead but we do see in the brothel that people see it as a way to rebel. What we can see is that in the end what people were has a large dictation of how society reacts to them. In the maiden’s tale, it seems as a system of repression and It helps the government fit the people into their class roles. While in Iran it is a religious belief it still leads to the untutored role of oppression in the society. This type of operation will hurt people overall and allow us to have a large correlation between societies. While one is fiction the the other is fact it still leads us to have to have to be careful where we go through our government.

The wall of Gilead serves many purposes. When you are alive, it keeps you inside the republic. When you are dead, you hang on the wall. And it symbolizes the new civilization they live in. I chose to make a visual representation of Offred in her handmade outfit, staring at the wall that keeps her enclosed. It shows bodies on the wall (not drawn too graphically), and the quote from Aunt Lydia saying “This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary”. This piece resembles the enclosure of the republic where Offred is stripped of her rights and treated as no human being ever should be. Obviously the rules in the republic of Gilead are very strict, and the bodies on the wall are basically a message from the leaders, the message being that if the rules are bent, that’s where you’ll end up. And the rules are bent many a time, meaning many feel the wrath of the wall. Offred herself realizes herself how much these salvagings are happening by saying she “didn’t hear the bells. Perhaps I’ve become used to them” (Atwood 32). The wall, as though some might look at it as a pile of bricks, others might look at it as a symbol. A symbol of civilization moving backwards. The wall restricts the people in a modern world where everyone should have freedom in their everyday lives. The possibilities should be endless, however the wall puts restrictions on said possibilities. The bodies on the wall almost seem like a strategy from the higher ups, as if to show the people who defied the rules, the people who wanted nothing more than to be past the boundaries, past the tens of feet of brick. They hang them exactly on that brick, as if to convince the others that if they try to get past this wall, they will be up there next. Especially since there are unoccupied hooks next to the occupied ones, and according to Offred the hooks symbolize “appliances for the armless. Or steel question marks, upside-down and sideways” (Atwood 32). The people on the wall always have a symbol near them, showing why they have been punished. This is an attempt to show the people what exactly they are NOT to do. But at this point in Gilead, it’s not about what you cannot do, it’s about what you are actually allowed to do, because that’s a much shorter list. The blood released from the prisoners symbolizes the inhumanity of the leaders, and the lengths they go just to try and prove a point to the citizens. Lydia’s quote in the bottom right is said on page 32, where Offred describes the features of the wall. And she is making it clear that these bodies hanging on the wall is just the beginning, that this is almost definitely going to be a common occurrence from now on.

Throughout the book The Handmaid’s Tale, we see the author Margaret Atwood emphasize the decay of words when it comes to describing censorship within the tyrannical rule and dystopian setting of the book. This intent shown through Atwood’s writing helps the reader understand how words affect the concept of freedom for an individual or a society as a whole. In the following paragraph, these moments will be decrypted and magnified. We’ll also see later on that this case of censorship is not just special to The Handmaid’s Tale.

During the beginning chapters, the narrator Offred voices this standard of living: “Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.” (Chp 2, pg 8). This happens as the narrator describes her surroundings, as she refuses to explain why things are laid out the way they are. From this quote alone, it can be inferred that thinking outside the given outline provided by the current society is forbidden. And thus, if the narrator puts any meaning to the things around her, she has failed the spiritual values imposed on her. The things that happen around her are a matter of fact. The people in power allowed it. That’s all that can be thought of it.

Jumping off of that, there are moments where the narrator does think. A thought of the times before. One such example of a thought of the times before is during a specific section of the reading where the narrator reminisces about a love song. After it, she would say the following: “I don’t know if the words are right. I can’t remember. Such songs are not sung anymore in public, especially the ones that use words like free. They are considered too dangerous. They belong to outlawed sects.” (Chp 10, pg 54). Here, it’s important to mention that a song is a body of words. With this understanding, we can simplify this quote as saying that these bodies of words are considered too dangerous. Furthermore, it can also be inferred that these bodies of words (love songs) aren’t dangerous in the sense that they are a threat to human safety, but rather that they are a threat to the religious ideologies, or thinking practices, held by the tyrannical rule in place. To add onto the banning of songs, we can also look into the burning of magazines, an action very similar to a specific country in the past: “They must have poured gasoline, because the flames shot high, and then they began dumping the magazines, from boxes, not too many at a time” (Chp 7, pg 38). And so, all this has nothing to do with preventing human detriment, but all to do with preventing thinking that goes against a belief.

Among all that, Offred, later on, acknowledges that those higher in the hierarchy, in this context, the commander, has the word: “He has something we don’t have, he has the word.” (Chp 15, pg 88). From this quote, the reader may oftentimes be misled into thinking that the word simply means power, but it has a double meaning. Not only does it mean power, but it literally means what it means – word. The commanders, who’s higher in the hierarchy than the narrator, not only have more power, but the ability to think on a larger scale. Not intellectually, rather among the rules that the narrator has to follow, the commander will have less in total, but also have the ability to know beyond the narrator’s current understanding of the setting. Previously mentioned, the narrator refuses to give meaning to her surroundings. In reference to the commander, he’s able to describe the reasonings; meanings. However, he’s not the one who gets to place those meanings, he only gets to describe. This is largely because the author implies that there is a higher power, higher to that of the commander – possibly Angels, Eyes, etc – which I’m unable to fully describe as of now.

Now, why are these scenarios not just special to The Handmaid’s Tale? This is because it has real world connotations. For example the previously mentioned concepts in the historical context of the real world can be found in the following: Nazi Germany[1], the North Korean Government[2], and the Chinese Government[3]. Nazi Germany, as we know, examined the flow of words by controlling the press, whether it be newspapers, radios, or newsreels. Previously I mentioned the burning of magazines, but I never clarified what country took a similar action. It is undoubtedly Nazi Germany. They burned books they consider to be un-German – Jewish authors and non-Jewish authors that conflict with Nazi ideals similar to Gilead. Furthermore, they banned Germans from listening to radio’s foreign to their own. The list goes on for Nazi Germany, so what about the North Korean government and the Chinese government? They are about the same. North Korea is stricter than China, of course, but both oversee the media and dispose of media that go against their beliefs. From personal knowledge, China, instead of Youtube, has other platforms to share only ITS content. So, from these three real-life sources, it’s easy to acknowledge that communication, which relies heavily on words, of multiple perspectives are condemned by the highest group that places the meanings – the governments.

And what do people do when it is condemned, with no possibility for expression? Much like the narrator, they get used to it. They forbiddenly make sense of it: “But a chair, sunlight, flowers: these are not to be dismissed. I am alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight. Where I am is not a prison but a privilege, as Aunt Lydia said, who was in love with either/or.” (Chp 2, pg 8). For an individual under these pretenses, they’ll stop thinking and begin to wander as if they are nothing but corpses. And, as humans do, they’ll find a way to justify their sense of living through the words of its controller.

“For survival may be, freedom (words) is (are) unseen (unsaid).” — They say.

Sources:

[1] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda-and-censorship

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-16255126

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/business/china-censored-search-engine.html

College English Lit Log # 1 The Handmaid’s Tale Rae Alexander October 12, 2023

Color and Style has been used to make statements and convey meanings between people for a long time. It’s all part of the 70% of communication that is non-verbal. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the characters are given uniforms with certain colors and style that communicate their status just like some of our own politicians do in our modern day. In the beginning we meet Offred, a woman with a blurry memory of her life from the time before and who is a handmaid. The handmaids have an interesting uniform. Offred says, “ Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood which defines us. The skirt is ankle length, full, gathered…”(8).Offred is swathed in a red cloak with “white wings” surrounding the face. Red is often recognized as the color of passion, or fierceness or blood. White is often associated with purity. Even without it being clearly stated we can see that there is a message being told to the reader about Offred and her role. In the world of Gilead, the Handmaids are respected by most of the public and carry a decent amount of status. Later on we learn that this is because their role is to “bear fruit” or carry the children of the commanders. They’re surrogates. Their role and the colors associated with their role tell not just the reader but the characters handmaid’s interact with in the story a great deal. Reflecting on how the characters of Gilead perceive the handmaids and their status and what it means within the society, is not completely a work of fiction. There are instances where women use colors and style to send a message to the public. For example, in 2019, congress women wore white as a call back to the suffragette white. It was said to be a “beacon of rebellion”, and was meant to emphasize the female presence on the house floor. Another instance was when Vice President Kamala Harris wore a purple inauguration coat. The mix of Democrat blue and Republican red, was a way to show unification between the two parties. To reference the quote cited earlier, Offred has to wear a long and flowing red cloak. It hides her figure for the most part, and covers a lot of skin, save for her face. There is a tone of modesty in the clothes she wears. Despite her role as a surrogate for the commander and his wife, Offred is shown to dress modestly and the white surrounding her face suggests a certain level of purity. “The white wings too are a prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen.”(8). The handmaids are supposed to be modest and are forced to not be seen and to not see. They are hidden and made to hide. The reader may come to think that modesty is an oppressive kind meant to keep the citizens ignorant. Something akin to this-albeit to a lesser extent-is how dress codes are somewhat gender targeted. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor had worn red nails and it became her signature. But when she was oathed, the dress code banned any ‘flamboyant’ nail polish colors and so her red nails were no more. There we again have that almost oppressive modesty. The color red is referenced again in real life and The Handmaid’s Tale. Justice Sotomayor’s signature red nail is banned because of its flamboyant nature. Red, once again, is a color of controversy, especially when women wear it. A lot of the time, in the real world, there is a push to stay away from red as a young girl or as a wedding guest because it draws attention. Red draws attention. Many people debate whether said attention is good or not but what people can agree on is that it certainly has all eyes on the person who wears it. Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is known for wearing a red lip a lot of the time. She says it’s a shout out to her Puerto Rican roots and it gives her a boost of confidence. It draws attention and boosts her confidence. But for red to be known as a traditionally bright and beacon of a color for the handmaids to have it as their color yet be said to not be seen is ironic. They’re bodies and status are to be seen but not talked about or acknowledged and their faces are surrounded in white. This could be a hint at perhaps their faces and individually not mattering anymore because of their status as surrogates to the commanders.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, By. Margaret Atwood. Atwood explores a lot of different real-world issues. The way she perceives body image and the way she shows it through her characters is what initially caught my attention because she does it uniquely. I was also able to connect this back to myself, the things that I have experienced, and the things that I see happening in my community. Not just affecting me but how it also affects the people around me.

Body Image is an issue that presents itself in The Handmaid’s Tale as well as in my own life. We are first introduced to this topic in chapter 13 of the book. The main character Offred is self-reflecting on her own life, while she has some “alone” time in the bathroom while she is taking a bath. She begins to carefully examine her body, studying the little imperfections and even remembering what her body has previously looked like in the past. This quote, I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will” (pg.95) interests me a lot. Considering the circumstances that she is facing and what has become her reality. As we know a Handmaid’s only job is to carry the child and then give birth. Nothing more and nothing less. She uses the word “used” referring to the fact that she thought that the only reason for her body was to be used, to be used as an instrument. Her body has been used not for herself but for others at a cost, the cost of love and lust. She doesn’t know anything other than using her body to get what she wants or just to make other people happy, and sadly, this has become her reality in the “new” life that she is now living.

People’s perception of your physical appearance affects some drastically while others aren’t as affected by it so much. In my own life and the things that I have seen in my community the type of body you have is heavily based on how others view you or how you want others to view you. A lot of the normal body imperfections are looked as if they shouldn’t be there and if your body has them your are not ‘perfect’ and there is something wrong. I have once struggled with the idea that my body needs to be perfect to feel pretty or accepted. It took some time for me to learn that there is no ‘perfect’ body and that in fact, my body is perfect just the way it is. This journey was not short at all, learning and getting to know your body for what it is and loving it for the way it is takes some time. As a little girl that was something hard for me to understand, knowing that it is okay to be a little chunky and have a little bit of stretch marks on my body because it’s normal. Everyone is not the same, therefore they aren’t gonna look the same. Learning not to worry about what others think learning not to want to look like them and being content with the way I looked and appear to others. Social media also plays a role in what “you should” look like and what “you shouldn’t” look like. It paints a false reality of what is deemed perfect and what is not, therefore influencing younger girls or just anyone in general to “fix” something that doesn’t need fixing. Atwood does it again with this quote, “Now the flesh rearranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object.” She conveys the idea of how a woman’s body changes from its original shape as a result of childbirth. “Flesh rearranges itself” meaning her body, the flesh has taken another form as the result of childbirth. It makes sense because Offred’s body is used to bear children and as we know she has already had a child, a child with Luke. This sense of a “mommy body” is also pretty relevant in the real world, it’s pretty evident that once you give birth your body is changed forever and it’s never gonna go back to its original state. This idea then leads some moms to go and get their bodies done to achieve something that was there that isn’t now. Some of them do it for themselves to make themselves feel a little bit better about their appearance while very few just leave their bodies as is, and they just grow to love their new body.

In Chapter 5, page 26, Offred and Ofglen are waiting in line at the shops, coming across a pregnant Janine, “A woman who is pregnant doesn’t have to go out, doesn’t have to go shopping… She could stay at her house. And it’s dangerous for her to be out, there must be a Guardian standing outside the door, waiting for her. Now that she’s the carrier of life, she is closer to death and needs special security. Jealousy could get her, it’s happened before. She comes here to display herself. She’s glowing, rosy, she’s enjoying every minute of this.”

This section of the Handmaid’s Tale stuck out to me, due to the fact that being pregnant is a glorified subject within Gilead. Handmaids in Gilead serve one purpose: get pregnant and give birth. If you’re infertile in Gilead, you are marked as an “Unwomen” and will get sent into The Colonies, where they must work to clean up nuclear waste. So when it comes to being pregnant, you have to treat it like you’re walking around glass, a careful but dangerous process. The handmaids in Gilead always live in such fear of becoming infertile or “Unwomen,” due to the fact that they would be basically useless. Their main purpose is to hold and give life, and if they can’t do that, what is the point of them to stay in the systematic society then?

In the epigraph of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood added a verse from Genesis 30:1-3. In Genesis 30:1, “And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.” This verse explains the sheer amount of biblical influence in The Handmaid’s Tale that relates to pregnancy. The main premise of this book is that verse: death and life. Jacob is being used as an object in this verse for Rachel. She craves to bear the life of a child, to fulfill a duty, the main duty of her life.

In my drawing, you can see that I drew what a typical handmaid would look like, but pregnant. I took this handmaid reference from the 2019 cover art for The Handmaid’s Tale, by Noma Bar (1). What I had in mind for this image was to tie in some biblical meaning behind this, by making the woman like the Virgin Mary and angelic-like. A reference I took for the Virgin Mary was a painting called the “Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary” by Jerónimo Ezquerra (2). I didn’t necessarily add much heavy connection between my drawing and this painting due to the different complexities that each piece holds. However, to make my drawing more angelic-like, I added to what most angels or holy people in historical Christian and/or Catholic paintings had. Which were a gold, halo-like orb around their head to represent the light emitting off of them. A reference I took for adding a halo around the handmaid’s head was from a painting by Giotto di Bondone (3), “Crying Angel”.

(1) http://www.casualoptimist.com/blog/2017/12/08/notable-book-covers-of-2017/handmaids-tale-noma-bar/

(2) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jerónimo_Ezquerra_Visitation.jpg

(3) https://www.greatbigcanvas.com/view/passion-the-crucifixion-crying-angel-by-giotto-1304-1306-scrovegni-chapel-padua,2070500/

In The Handmaid’s tale, flowers hold an important role in the telling of the story about women and their offspring. Offred, who is a handmaid, mentions tulips multiple times throughout the book. Tulips represent the handmaids and their fertility, as well as their pain. “The tulips are red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they have been cut and are beginning to heal there.” (pg.12) This is the first time Offred mentions tulips and the reader’s introduction to the tulips are these beautiful flowers that are wounded in Serena Joy’s garden. We also make the connection between the handmaid’s red dresses and the red tulips, so for this art piece, the handmaid’s dress is the tulip itself. Tulips are alluring and desired, yet their color signifies blood and wounds. “The tulips along the border are redder than ever, opening, no longer wine cups but chalices; thrusting themselves up, to what end? They are, after all, empty. When they are old they turn themselves inside out, then explode slowly, the petals thrown out like shards.” (pg.45) Tulips in full bloom represent their fertility. It’s the only reason Gilead society values her body. She knows that even though the tulips look beautiful and appealing once fully bloomed, they are going to grow old and be thrown out once they aren’t in bloom anymore. Her body is disposable once she is infertile.

Unlike the handmaids, the Commander’s Wives in Gilead are infertile, yet protected. Dried flowers represent the Commander’s Wives who are infertile. In this art piece, Serena Joy’s blue dress is a dried up flower. Dried flowers are displayed and still valued. “The tastes of Serena Joy are a strange blend: hard lust for quality, soft sentimental cravings. There’s a dried flower arrangement on either end of the mantelpiece, and a vase of real daffodils on the polished marquetry end table beside the sofa.” (pg.80) These dried flowers are held in a vase, signifying that even though they are dried, they are not seen as disposable. We also see how desperate Serena is to be a fresh flower through her scent: Lily of the Valley.

Both women envy each other. Serena Joy envies Offred’s ability to bloom and create life, whereas Offred envies Serena’s ability to keep and take care of her own garden. Offred once had a garden, representing how once she used to be in control of her body and the children she conceived. We can see this through her daughter that lives in her memories. “It smells of me, in former times, when I was a mother.” (pg.47) The garden in the background of this art piece symbolizes freedom and birth. Serena grows a garden outside of her house, but inside, all of her flowers are dried up, symbolizing how in reality, she cannot conceive a child. “The Commander’s Wife looks down at the baby as if it’s a bouquet of flowers: something she’s won, a tribute.” (pg.126) The children that the Handmaids conceive are seen as flower bouquets, furthering the connection of flowers and life. In contrast, Offred has a desire to steal a dried up flower. “I would like to take some small thing, the scrolled ashtray, the little silver pillbox from the mantel perhaps, or a dried flower.” (pg.80) Offred is jealous of Serena Joy’s ability to be infertile yet secure and protected, which is why she flaunts her ability to create life while pitying, as well as shaming Serena in her inner monologue.

Quotes:

CH #17 PG #99 Nick says. “He wants to see you in his office.” … “Tomorrow,” he says

CH #23 PG #136 After that, reclassification. I could become an Un-Woman. But to refuse to see him could be worse. There’s no doubt about who holds the real power. But there must be something he wants from me. To want is to have a weakness.

CH #23 PG #139 “Thank you,” he says. “For the game.” Then he says, “I want you to kiss me.”

CH #23 PG #140 He draws away, looks down at me. There’s the smile again, the sheepish one. Such candor. “Not like that.” he says. “As if you meant it.” He was so sad.

CH #24 PG #144 I can ask for something. Possibly not much; but something. Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good.

This entire situation is extremely weird and makes me very uncomfortable not to mention living through it. We have an understanding of the secrecy surrounding the ordeal starting on page 99. Offred is sneaking around outside of her room after dark and accidentally runs into NIck however for Nick this is no accident, “Nick says. “He wants to see you in his office.” … “Tomorrow,” he says.” Originally this prompts a world of uncertainty for Offred and in turn the readers. There is no way of telling why the Commander would want to see her aside from assumptions. Regardless, Offred knows she is left with no choice as we see on page 136 “After that, reclassification. I could become an Un-Woman. But to refuse to see him could be worse. There’s no doubt about who holds the real power. But there must be something he wants from me. To want is to have a weakness.”. Even in the reality of her powerlessness and his control of her and the situation she can use this to her advantage. “To want is to have a weakness.” The quote clears all of the mystery surrounding the meeting. It no longer matters what the Commander wants, the situation has been put into perspective, the commander has a want and that is a weakness to be taken advantage of. Page 144 “I can ask for something. Possibly not much; but something. Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good.”

We eventually get to the meeting where we finally learn the commander’s intent, it turns out to not be as we assumed. As they played scramble and talked (the commander talked) I got the sense that the commander was looking for a sense of companionship. This would make sense as even in the relationship with his wife there seems to be a lot of formality. The titles husband and wife appear more so to be more job titles than symbols of their bond. By the end of their meeting I was questioning how much of his intent was companionship and how much of it was out of romantic interest. I don’t mean romantic interest as in a sexual connection but more so a true partner. Page 139 “Thank you,” he says. “For the game.” Then he says, “I want you to kiss me.” As he said this I wondered if he was trying to create an illusion of that partnership he desires, maybe this meeting is how he imagines a date. Page 140 “He draws away, looks down at me. There’s the smile again, the sheepish one. Such candor. “Not like that.” he says. “As if you meant it.” He was so sad.” To me this confirmed my assumptions. He is trying to have Offer act out his ideal romantic relationship. I say this because of the line “Not like that.” he says. “As if you meant it.” He was so sad.” This quote for me symbolizes him realizing the reality of the situation where offered is just a stranger and she doesn’t see him the same as he does her, or share his interests. The line also reassures the idea of the commander imagining how things should ideally be happening as this entire interaction is very formulated and staged out to create this illusion for him.

In “The Handmaid’s Tale”, the women of Gilead don’t control what happens to their bodies. Their only purpose is to bear children for the commander’s so that they can get promoted. Men run essentially everything in Gilead. They are the guards that watch over the women, they lead them into the towns, and they are the ones in charge. The society is also built on very religious christian beliefs.

In chapter 19, it is mentioned that women are not given anesthetics anymore for child birth as it is better for the baby. They use the bible quote “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” to justify it. When a woman is pregnant, she is seen as lucky and the other women are envious of her. The way that women conceive is called the ceremony where the commander attempts to impregnate them. In chapter 21, Janine is giving birth to her child and the women around her are feeling very intense emotions. “It’s coming, it’s coming, like a bugle, a call to arms, like a wall falling, we can feel it like a heavy stone moving down, pulled down inside us, we think we will burst. We grip each other’s hands, we are no longer single”.

When reading these chapters about Janine, it sounds like a religious cult. The way women are brainwashed into believing that something regular like being pregnant is lucky. It reminds me of the Christian Rights movement in the 1980s. This movement tried to limit access to the medication that women needed for childbirth. They also fought against abortion. They were trying to take away the rights of a woman’s body to control them. The belief is that women really are not important past their reproductive abilities.

The society of Gilead is also a patriarchal society in which the men run everything, as I stated before. The patriarchy is a belief that man should be the gender running everything. The women should have no power at all and only exist to serve the men. They should be more traditional. The man in charge of the “household” is the commander. What is really interesting is that he actually has no real clue about what the women are going through. In chapter 25, he mentions that he had no idea they check the handmaid’s rooms to see if they are hiding anything. It is very ironic that in this patriarchal society, the man in charge has no clue what is happening in his own household.

Another side of the patriarchy is believing that women shouldn’t just not have power, but they should only exist to serve the men. They shouldn’t have jobs, they shouldn’t have a source of income, and they should only be there for the men. They should have dinner when the man gets home, they should be there when the man is feeling sad, and they should have as many kids as the man wants. They must also alway look presentable and pretty. The house should always be clean and nice. The children should also always be looked after by the wife because the man is too busy to care for them. This is called being traditional. They also go against the LGBTQ community. It is very misogynistic and goes against the freedom of women.

In “The Handmaid’s Tale”, the character Moira exists to be the direct opposite of these views. She goes against the patriarchy and misogyny. She exists as the embodiment of freedom for women. Chapter 22 focuses on the escape of Moira and how she got out of the red center. At the point of writing this it is unclear if she actually is free or if she is dead but she did escape. On page 133 they mention the women were afraid of her. They are afraid because she got out. “She is now a loose woman”. The society of Gilead has essentially brainwashed them into these traditional views that anything outside of that is terrifying to them. They are scared to be themselves and who they were in the time before.

Another important part to mention is that for some of these women, this is not their first time having kids. On page 125, it reads “It’s her second baby, she had another child, once”. This is referring to Janine. Offred also had a child before this. The patriarchal society has truly changed these women so much that the time before is almost like it doesn’t exist. They get so excited to see childbirth that they forget how common it was.

In conclusion, Gilead is a society built on extremely misogynistic, traditional views mixed in with religion. It creates a society that goes against women, believes they don’t deserve rights, and that they only exist to serve the men and have their children.

The gloomy book ¨The Handmaid’s Tale¨ by Margaret Atwood´s explore themes of rule, control, and resistance in a society personal freedom are heavily restricted. Despite, it being a fiction, the story make important comparisons to the historical background of slavery in the United States. Both stories examine how people are degraded, how their power as individuals are undermined, and how resilience develops in the face of oppressive regimes. I will explore the comparison of a single passage from “The Handmaid’s Tale” with the background of slavery in historical times, showing how both versions reveal the relationships of power and resistance.

In “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Gilead’s society cruelly devalues its people, treating them as nothing more than objects for reproduction. Offred, the main character of the book, struggles with her identity after understanding that the government only sees her as a “I am a national resource” (Atwood, 65). This direct statement explains how the government views women as little more than machines for reproducing, a belief that oddly echoes a dark period in American history.

During the era of slavery in the United States, a similar dehumanization process took place. People who were in slavery were treated like property, had their identities eventually taken away from them, and were then made into products that could be purchased and sold. They were denied basic human rights and treated as mere “slaves,” much like the women of Gilead, who are only valued as reproductive organs.

The author also effectively examines how language and storytelling may be used as instruments of tyranny. The government effectively censors any challenge by limiting words and thoughts that throw doubt on its authority. The phrase “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” (Atwood, 92), which can be translated as “Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” is used by Offred as a representation of resistance in language.

Similar to today, those who were oppressed throughout the time of slavery came up with creative strategies to fight back and claim their humanity. To speak secretly and away from the ears of their masters, they frequently invented their own languages, such as Gullah or Creole. In Frederick Douglass’s autobiographies, they used the power of storytelling to expose lies about slavery that were spread by those in power.

As Offred and other characters in “The Handmaid’s Tale” discovered means to resist, historical examples of enslaved people also displayed incredible strength and resistance. In order to express their humanity and autonomy, they staged revolts, studied reading and writing secretly, and passed down their culture and traditions. This resistance can be seen by the words of escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who said the following: “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”

In both cases, I see the idea of names and identity is a significant issue. In “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the Handmaids are given new names as a representation of their identity loss and submission to the state. Their lack of uniqueness is made much more clear by the removal of their real names. This idea is demonstrated by Offred’s quote: ¨My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter. I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I’ll come back to dig up, one day. I think of this name as buried.¨ Similar identity loss occurred in the context of historical slavery. Names and cultural identities were forcibly taken away from enslaved people. Their new names, given by their owners, served as a reminder of their objectification and transformation into property.

There are significant similarities between “The Handmaid’s Tale” and the history of slavery in how they portray oppression, resistance, and the tenacity of people. We have examined the dehumanization of people, the control of reproduction and familial separation, the theme of resistance, the manipulation of language, and the fight for autonomy through close reading and direct takes from the book. Both stories act as humbling examples of the dangers of unequal authority and the spirit of people who fight for freedom and choice against the most terrible of systems. By establishing these comparisons, we are better able to grasp the common experiences that persons who stood up to oppressive systems and sought to regain control of their lives have had.

Leah and Rachel are two very prominent matriarchal figures in the bible. They are sisters and wives to Jacob, constantly competing for his attention. Jacob had a clear preference for Rachel, but God balanced this favoritism by making Leah fertile, and leaving Rachel barren.

The etymology of the names Rachel, Leah, and Jacob are relevant to their stories. Leah means “cow,” and some translations say that she has “soft eyes,” meaning the eye muscles never strain. “Cow eyes” describe a look of submission, or weakness. Rachel translates to “ewe,” or a baby lamb. I’ve heard women described as cows and baby lambs. Jacob, or Yaakov in Hebrew, has many different translations, but they all have a similar meaning: “deceiver,” or “he who supplants,” and “he who god protects.” Jacob tricked his blind father into thinking he was his twin Esau, and he got everything by being the supplant, the deceiver.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood paints Gilead as an oppressive regime based heavily on biblical and religious contexts. Leah and Rachel are mentioned multiple times in the story, and there is even a building called the Rachel and Leah center, where the Handmaids learn how to be good women, and be the best version of themselves as Handmaids.

Each Handmaid lives in a house with the Commander, and his Wife, along with a few others. Atwood focuses on one Handmaid, Offred, letting her narrate the story. Offred has complicated relationships with the Commander and his Wife, Serena Joy. The Commander is the only man living in the house, and because of that, he has a lot of power. Serena Joy is his wife but she cannot bear his children for him. Offred must be her “forced surrogate.” Sound familiar? Because of this dynamic, everyone in the house is a little bit jealous of each other. “In this house we all envy each other something” (47). This competition doesn’t result in any progress, and just pits women against each other. This is a direct reference to Rachel and Leah’s story. They are pitted against each other for the attention of the Commander.

Right before the Ceremony, the Commander is reading the bible, perhaps following the pre-ceremonial rituals. “Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.” (88). This isn’t the first time we see this verse (Genesis 30:1-3). It is written on the second page of the book, before the story even begins. The full bible passage describes Rachel being unable to conceive with Jacob, so Leah must do that for her, with her. In the Ceremony, Offred lays in between Serena Joy’s legs while the Commander is having sex with her, a ritual clearly based on the biblical context.

The dynamic in the household is not the only reference to the religious context. Remember the etymology of each of the names? They play a large role in the characterization of each individual. Offred often talks negatively about her body in her narration. “I used to think of my body as an instrument…an implement of my will…There were limits, but my body was nevertheless lithe, single, solid, one with me. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am…” (74). She feels like a cow, round and tough, and a subtly theme in her narration. Serena Joy is depicted by Offred as “Serena has begun to cry. I can hear her, behind my back. It isn’t the first time. She always does this, the night of the Ceremony” (90). Serena Joy, on the other hand, is depicted as a helpless woman who is fragile and struggles with pleasing her husband, like a baby lamb.

And don’t worry, the Commander lives up to his namesake as well. Offred’s relationship with the Commander changes when the Commander calls Offred into his room to play Scrabble numerous times, Offred finally feels like she has power over Serena Joy. She feels desired by the Commander for once. The Commander makes her feel special by gifting her a magazine during their second meeting. However, Offred soon discovers his motivations for the gift.

“‘But why show it to me?…”Who else could I show it to? He said, and there it was again, that sadness…‘How about your wife?’ He seemed to think about that. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t understand. Anyways she won’t talk to me much anymore. We don’t seem to have much in common, these days.’ So there it was, out in the open: his wife didn’t understand him. That’s what I was there for then… It was too banal to be true.” (158)

Even when he seems genuine in his acts, he is still using Offred and almost manipulating her, deceiving her like Jacob would.

Atwood draws the connection so strongly between the trios that it is impossible to ignore. And knowing the religious context can help us make predictions about each character, get to know who they really are, and what their motivations are towards each other. Why she chooses this specific story to interpolate can be interpreted in many ways. On the surface, she is pointing out how messed up the stories in the bible are, and makes an argument against using it as law, or as a belief system. On a deeper level she is showing how society manipulates women into comparing themselves with others, into constantly trying to one-up each other, when we should be standing together. Both arguments lead to questioning society and how we treat each other, Atwood uses these multifaceted characters to propel her writing forward.

Sources:

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/leah-bible https://blissandfire.com/Inspirational/jacob-the-supplanter-holder-of-the-heel-bliss-fire-network-weekly-digest-february-9-2010#:~:text=EXPLORATION,means%20HE%20WHOM%20GOD%20PROTECTS. https://www.thebump.com/b/yaakov-baby-name https://www.yeshiva.co/ask/190 https://www.sheknows.com/baby-names/name/yaakov/ https://painintheenglish.com/case/626

In my visual representationI chose to depict the scene where Offred notices the phrase “Nolite te bastardes Carborundorum” scrawled into her closet,this roughly translates to “don’t let the bastards beat you down”. This scene really stood out to me as it shows possibly two things, a previous handmaid had scratched this into her closet shortly before escaping gilead and moving on to brighter pastures. Or a previous handmaid had scratched the message into the closet shortly before being captured, punished, or even killed for displaying rebellious behavior. I think the fact that this scene was so open to interpretation is what made me so interested in it. However I chose the ladder in my depiction, having very muted colors and a general disheveled and gloomy look to the closet certainly does not paint a picture of hope. I chose to have the cloak hanging slightly off of the hanger in order to show that Offred still has some human instincts of laziness and that the brainwashing has not yet fully taken her over. My choice of only putting one robe and wing set in the closet is meant to show how little the handmaid’s actually possess; they are allowed no personal belongings, and the ones mandated to them are very few. The dresser itself I tried to make slightly more ornate, in order to make it fit with the rest of the house, but made sure to make it not overly complicated in order to re-emphasize the point that there are no luxuries when you are a handmaid.I think the main reason that I wanted to add a visual component to this scene is because Offred goes into very little detail regarding the closet and the message inside it, and I believe that it deserved more attention. This must be a choice by the author to show offred’s attitude towards rebellion at the time. I think that gilead is full of amazingly grim imagery that is very well conveyed just for being words on a page. When reading it is as if I can see the world of gilead around me. I made this piece feel natural, as if I had this picture In my mind the whole time.

Song 1: You Don’t Own Me By Lesley Gore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iyg_tF-mJk

An excerpt of the lyrics:

You don’t own me/ I’m not just one of your many toys/ You don’t own me/ Don’t say I can’t go with other boys

…

You don’t own me/ Don’t try to change me in any way/ You don’t own me/ Don’t tie me down ‘cause I’d never stay/

…

I’m young and I love to be young/ I’m free and I love to be free/ To live my life the way I want/ To say and do whatever I please

This song by Lesley Gore is about a woman who is in a controlling relationship and wants to tell her boyfriend that he doesn’t own her like an object and that he can’t make rules about what she can’t or cannot do. Moira’s sentiment relates to that of the song because she doesn’t allow Gilead’s rules to control her. All the handmaids are treated as sex objects. Moira doesn’t want to be used. Moira has her own will, but unlike the character portrayed in the song, she doesn’t have the ability to do and say whatever she wants, as the government restricts everyone’s actions and speech. The singer is likely able to leave her relationship, but Moira cannot do the same. Instead, Moira ran away.

Song 2: We Belong Together by Mariah Carey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ09L3sOOUY

An excerpt of the lyrics:

I couldn’t have fathomed that I would ever/ Be without your love/ Never imagined I’d be/ Sitting here beside myself

I never felt/ The feeling that I’m feeling/ Now that I don’t/ Hear your voice/ Or have your touch and kiss your lips/ ‘Cause I don’t have a choice/ Oh, what I wouldn’t give/ To have you lying by my side/ Right here, ‘cause baby/ I can’t sleep at night/ When you are on my mind/

I only think of you/ And it’s breaking my heart/ I’m trying to keep it together/ But I’m falling apart/

This song, by Mariah Carey, is about longing. The lyrics convey the sadness she feels when she’s not around her ex-lover. They also communicate Offred’s feelings as she longs for Luke. She longs to be touched, to have Luke’s attention, and to be in love. “I wanted to feel Luke lying beside me” (52) “I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not.” (97) Carey expresses the same feelings throughout the song.

Offred also misses her daughter. “I close my eyes, and she’s there with me, suddenly, without warning […]I put my face against the soft hair at the back of her neck and breathe her in, baby powder and child’s washed flesh and shampoo […].” (61) She talks about Luke and her daughter all the time and interrupts her story of Gilead with memories of them. Offred feels melancholy when thinking about her family, which is how Carey feels when she thinks about her ex: “ it’s breaking my heart [..] I’m falling apart.”

Song 3: Chopin’s Funeral March

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZY5DBmgC_A

Chopin wrote this mournful piece in the 1830s when he was in exile, away from his home in Poland. The Polish were revolting against the Russians, so Chopin was fearing for his family and friends’ lives. In one scene of the Handmaid’s Tale, Offred—in a dream—relived the memory of her daughter being taken away. It was a time of sadness and heartbreak. Offred was also fearing for the safety of her daughter. The listener can feel Chopin’s pain and grief when writing this piece, which also conveys Offred’s emotions in the scene. When Offred wakes up from her dream, she wakes up crying, because “of all the dreams this is the worst.”

Song 4: All By Myself by Irving Berlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBzTzIbwZg0

Lyrics:

All by myself in the mornin’ / All by myself in the night/ I sit alone with a table and a chair/ So unhappy there/ Playin’ solitaire./ All by myself I get lonely/ Watchin’ the clock on the shelf/ I’d love to rest my weary head/ On somebody’s shoulder/ I hate to grow older/ All by myself./

This song is about someone who is by himself, living a single but unhappy life. In the Handmaid’s Tale, the reader can infer that Offred is lonely because she doesn’t have anyone to really talk to and experience life with. She feels down when she’s alone. Sometimes she cries when she remembers the memories of her family because she misses them and wants more freedom. “[N]obody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die from. There’s nobody here I can love, all the people I could love are dead or elsewhere.” (103) Berlin sings about wanting to rest his head on somebody’s shoulder, but there’s nobody there.

Song 5: A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke

https://youtu.be/wEBlaMOmKV4

It’s been a long/ A long time coming, but I know/ A change gon’ come/ Oh yes, it will/

There been times that I thought/ I couldn’t last for long/ But now, I think I’m able/ To carry on/

“A Change is Gonna Come” is a song that was written in 1964 about hope and that things will eventually change. Cooke is hopeful that our society will become more accepting of African Americans and those who identify as minorities. Offred also has a feeling of hopefulness at one point in the Handmaid’s Tale, when she anticipates a letter from Luke, signifying that he is alive and that help is coming. To Offred, a letter would mean that change is close, that something good could occur. “Any day now there may be a message from him. […] The message will say that I must have patience: sooner or later he will get me out, we will find her, wherever they’ve put her. She’ll remember us and we will be all three of us together. (106) Cooke says that his hope for a better future keeps him alive. “I think I’m able to carry on.” It’s the same with Offred. Her hope to be reunited with her family keeps her going. “It’s this message that keeps me alive.” (106)