The Handmaid's Tale Playlist

A playlist for The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood would convey the main themes of womanhood, sadness and hope, similar to the themes in the novel. For this playlist, I selected five songs:

Cloudbusting by Kate Bush, Bigger Than the Whole Sky by Taylor Swift, Back to the Old House by The Smiths, The Man by Taylor Swift, and What Was I Made For? by Billie Eilish

Cloudbusting is not a song I would connect to The Handmaid’s Tale for its lyrics, but more so the feeling of the song. Bush says “​​But every time it rains / You’re here in my head / Like the sun coming out”. This song demonstrates the idea of hope. Throughout chapter 18, Offred describes the different ways she imagines what could have happened to Luke. After she plays out these imaginations, she imagines the message Luke would send to her: “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)” Offred tells herself these stories to give herself hope and to keep her going. Cloudbusting demonstrates this beautifully, which is why it would be a powerful addition to the playlist.

Bigger Than the Whole Sky is well fitting for Offred and her daughter. As Offred continues to tell her story of life in the ‘before times’, she briefly mentions the daughter she once had, who was taken from her when she got placed into the current system. Bigger Than the Whole Sky is about losing someone who meant more than the whole world. The chorus reads “You were more than just a short time / And I’ve got a lot to pine about / I’ve got a lot to live without” This is Offred’s general feeling about her daughter: she has lots of spare time, lots to spend wondering about what she has lost. “Did some force take you because I didn’t pray?… / So I’ll say words I don’t believe” is one lyric that is directly linked to Offred, as well as the society she is living in. Gilead is centered around religion. If Offred had been more involved in religion, maybe she would still be with her daughter. The second part of the lyric describes Offred’s imagination: “The things I believe can’t all be true, though one of them must be… This contradictory way of believing seems to me, right now, the only way I can believe anything. (106)” She reassures that Luke and her daughter are safe and okay.

Back to the Old House is a song that I would imagine Offred playing in her head while she lays in her bedroom. Back to the Old House is a song about missing what you once had and not appreciating it as it was. I relate this to Offred and the way she reflects on her previous time with Luke and their family. One lyric from the song is: “Are you still there or have you moved away? / I would love to go / Back to the old house” The artist is wondering where their lover is, and hoping to go back, similar to Offred. This song encapsulates Offred lying in bed looking up at the wreath or looking out her window. “I fold back the sheet, get carefully up, on silent bare feet, in my nightgown, go to the window, like a child, I want to see. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow.(97)” This song plays in the back of my mind during this scene, or even an instrumental version of it, either well fitting the tone of the scene.

The Man connects to the culture of Gilead. The Man is about how much more Taylor Swift could achieve if she had been a man. Men are indifferent to the women in Gilead. When Offred tells the Commander that she doesn’t want him to make anything obvious to Serena, he doesn’t even realize he had. “Did I?” he says. He is paying very little attention to his actions and he doesn’t realize how much is at risk for Offred; if they were caught he would get no blame and she would be an Unwomen. After the conversation with the Commander, Offred thinks “You can see from the way I was speaking to him we were already on different terms. (162)” The Man perfectly portrays how Offred felt in this moment, knowing that they are in two different situations and the Commander has less, if not nothing, to lose.

What Was I Made For? by Billie Eilish outlines the feelings of many of the women in Gilead. What Was I Made For? is about identity and place in the world. In the household each woman has their own role and limits. The system for women causes unhappiness for all of them. Serena envies Offred for her fertility, her reminder of what she can’t provide for her family. Offred envies Serena for her freedom, on page 69 she writes “If only I could embroider. Weave, knit, something to do with my hands.” Offred gets the honor of giving birth to a child, but the Marthas get the joy of raising it, even though it is Serena’s kid. The song perfectly connects to the emotion and longing of the many women throughout the novel.

Link to YouTube Song: [https://youtu.be/WataeV4WsI4?si=SI4gY2vvNcgwtei]

Perspective of Women

Margaret Atwood built up a religious society that prioritze’s reproduction in The Handmaid’s Tale. As a society, women often fear men whether that be catcalling or assault. But there is also a selection of women who don’t feel disgusted by catcalling. Offred is a woman who has no power in her society, Gilead. She does not leave her house very much due to her role as a handmaid and when she does, she is with a partner. “As we walk away I[Offred] know they’re watching, these two men who aren’t yet permitted to touch women. They touch with their eyes instead and I move my hips a little, feeling the full red skirt sway around me.”(22) which infers that she feels a sense of power when she is provoking the young soldiers in the streets. It is quite odd how she does not feel fear during this moment and how big the contrast is compared to our society today.

Even though Gilead protects women now, it was never like that. The book mentions “rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: Don’t open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police… Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don’t turn to look.”(24). The past Gilead is very similar to our society now. The same rules apply to women today however, our society is definitely more dangerous. Women often fear talking to men in the streets due to activities like rape or assault. Although it is advised for women to not go out alone, many resort to having self defense weapons. Gilead solved this problem as Offred mentioned “We aren’t allowed to go there except in twos. This is supposed to be for our protection, though the notion is absurd: we are well protected already.”(19). The difference between Gilead and our society today shows how comfortable women feel around men in public.

This also brings up later on when Offred was “ashamed of [her]self for doing it”(22) which is how she acknowledges that it is wrong but yet she feels pleasure from doing it. This small bit of power she has over these men brings her joy due to her relation to men in general. but yet society makes it so women are only objects. As the Atwood “there is supposed to be nothing entertaining about us, no room is to be permitted for the flowering of secret lusts; no special favors are to be wheedled, by them or us, there are to be no toehold for love. We are two-legged wombs, that’s all:sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.”(136). However this is not much different than our society today. Women are often seen as disposable and objects when it comes to men’s sexual desires. Offred knows she is only “for breeding purposes”(136) which makes this dynamic of a young man that can’t touch her and a woman who accepts the fact that she is just an object. In today’s society, women are not objects and many speak out on this subject. Feminist movements are bigger than ever and the people are fighting for women’s rights. This does not exist in the present Gilead however it may have been a movement in the past Gilead.

Although this ideology exists, women still find pleasure in being catcalled. In our society today, street culture often puts women in fear but catcalling is very two sided. One side is very disturbing where women are scared to walk outside, in fear that they will be touched. The other side is odd where women feel pride and an ego boost when a man shouts for them. Offred is a part of the other side but it is purely based on how Gilead functions as a society. Offred wants men to think about her and “hopes they get hard at the sight of us and have to rub themselves against the painted barriers, surreptitiously.” because this gives her the satisfaction she wants. Although a selection of women choose to brag and gloat about being catcalled, the majority are aware of the danger of men. Maybe women feel this way because of the lack of power these women feel. This could also contribute to their confidence and self esteem because they want to feel like they matter. Overall, it is a toxic mentality that kind of discards the fear factor of the society around women. Offred is protected in Gilead but women in today’s society still live in fear.

Household, Before the Ceremony

I chose to depict the scene before the Ceremony, when everyone gathers in the sitting room to read the Bible. This scene is very visual and physical, with everyone gathered awkwardly, waiting for the Commander. Everyone has their spot in the room, dictated by their role in the household. I could very clearly picture this scene - everyone in their distinct colors, in this ornate, victorian sitting room that seems unused until this moment.

When the Commander comes in, Offred says “He manages to appear puzzled, as if he can’t quite remember how we all got in here. As if we are something he inherited, like a Victorian pump organ, and he hasn’t figured out what to do with us. What we are worth.,” (Atwood, 87) The people waiting for the Commander are presented as an assortment, a collection even, and one that doesn’t seem very valuable. The image is even clearer after she says this, and so is the significance of this moment. This is the gathering of the household, revealing the true hierarchy - the Commander above all else. The wife is stripped of her illusion of power during this moment and the rest of the Ceremony. This is not her house, as much as she acts like it is. They are all under the rule of the Commander, under the ownership of the Commander. Offred asks, “…If he were to falter, fail, or die what would become of us?” (Atwood, 88) They are nothing without him. He provides them with the small amount of safety and power they have now. They are his property. Like objects, they will be sent off to an unknown place, lost, powerless, and purposeless without him. All of that becomes clear in this moment, for Offred and the reader.

I chose to depict the women and Nick as mere colors, with no other identifying features, because they aren’t seen as fully human by the Commander and the larger society. They are defined by their duty to their society and have no value outside of their household role. They are painted, rather than drawn to differentiate them from the Commander and the room, his room. The Commander is depicted as a human because his humanness is the only one that is valued by this society. The others are just extras, a piece of his world.

I also read the description of the room very carefully and tried to replicate it the best I could. Offred mentions the symmetry of the room, so I made the room completely symmetrical except for the group of people and the table with the Bible. She talks about the daffodils on the table next to the sofa, and the ornate chairs the Commander and Wife sit in. The mantel is described in great detail, with dried flowers on either side and silver candlesticks on either side of the mirror, which is flanked by old paintings of women. I included all of these because the physicality and atmosphere are very important in this scene - the ornate, unused sitting room makes the Ceremony even more awkward.

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THT Lit Log #1

My artwork depicts a pigeon poking itself to death as a representation of a handmaid. This is based on writing from Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, as the main character, Offred, had given inspiration for this drawing in chapter thirteen.

During this section, Offred is speaking about the extensive free time she has now that she is serving her new role in society. She starts to draw comparisons between herself and animals, such as pigs being entertained with balls in which they roll with their snouts. She had learned about this in a Psychology class. However the author decides to include another strange animal fact about pigeons, as Offred remembers more from this very same class. Offred reminisces about this on page seventy, reciting: “And the one on the pigeons, trained to peck a button that made a grain of corn appear. Three groups of them: the first got one grain per peck, the second one grain every other peck, the third was random. When the man in charge cut off the grain, the first group gave up quite soon, the second group a little later. The third group never gave up. They’d peck themselves to death, rather than quit. Who knew what worked?” As a reader this can be recognized as a strange side tangent, but with closer inspection there can be many layers to interpret. This seems to be a reference to the obvious baby and reproduction issue that Offred’s society is dealing with, as the seeds represent the babies, slowly ceasing to be birthed on a frequent basis. However, why would this result in the pigeons killing themselves? This could be Offred seeing herself and the other handmaids as the pigeons, pecking for a brighter future however not knowing the attempts are purposeless. They could be simply killing themselves, which I attempted to show in my drawing.

Offred mentions this feeling of hopelessness many times. She wishes for a brighter future beyond her current situation. She likes to assure herself that there is an escape but still recognizes that she might not get that opportunity. Offred most clearly states these ideas on page one hundred thirty four, explaining, “I intend to get out of here. It can’t last forever. Others have thought such things, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didn’t last forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had.” This quote represents Offred’s knowledge that her situation might be the end of her, that she might be stuck for the rest of “the forever” she has. Though this doesn’t crush her belief in a better life, she still keeps pressing this button of hope, even if it may not ever give her the symbol of a “seed” that she desires. When I was making my drawing this is what I had in mind, the symbolic connection between Offred, the handmaids, and the pigeons. Pecking themselves to death in her Psychology class.

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Who Are the Handmaids?

I created a collage of a picture of a Handmaid, but as a doll. Throughout the text, Offred compares herself and others in her situation to dolls because of the way they are being controlled. While in conversation with Serena Joy, Offred remarks to herself, “They used to have dolls, for little girls, that would talk if you pulled a string at the back; I thought I was sounding like that, voice of a monotone, voice of a doll.” (pg. 16) Offred has no self expression or free will. Like a doll, she is being controlled, and everything she says is what she’s supposed to say, and everything she does is dictated by the will of others.

Another thing that struck me about the text is the way the handmaids are treated like children. This is especially seen in the scenes that take place in the gymnasium. The handmaids go through a sort of rebirth while in training, from cleansing themselves through Testifying, to total indoctrination and brainwashing at the hands of the Aunts. While reading this, I felt like the society was trying to create a blank slate out of the handmaids, someone new to the world, like a child. As I read the training scenes, I saw more of this. The handmaids call their mentors “aunt”, have daily naptime, are taught in a high school, and are overall put in situations that parallel those of kids. One example of this is when Janine Testifies and is humiliated in front of the handmaids, and they chant, “Crybaby, Crybaby. Crybaby.” (pg. 72) As soon as I first read this, “crybaby” struck me as an interesting choice of words. Crybaby is what kids call other kids when they’re making fun of them, it’s a word that’s associated with children. I found this to be another reason why a doll is a good metaphor for the handmaids. Dolls are toys for kids, and comparing the handmaids to dolls emphasizes the childlike manner in which they are treated.

I also decided to make the handmaid in my collage’s red dress made of flowers. From the first few chapters, I noticed connections between the handmaids and flowers. While Offred and Serena Joy are waiting for the Ceremony to begin, Offred narrates about her companion, “Even at her age she still feels the urge to wreathe herself in flowers. No use for you, I think at her, my face unmoving, you can’t use them any more, you’re withered.” (pg. 81-82) Offred is criticizing the Commander’s Wife’s obsession with flowers which we see in the text through her perfume choice, decor, and of course, her dedication to her garden. During a group discussion, several of my table mates thought that the garden represented motherhood, and Serena Joy’s commitment to her garden was her practicing for her one role in society. This made me later think that flowers represented children and fertility. It would explain why Offred reacted the way she did to the Commander’s Wife’s interest in flowers, describing her as withered, and why Serena Joy is obsessed with them in the first place.

Not only do the flowers represent fertility, but the handmaids themselves, since handmaids aren’t treated as real people, and their only purpose is for their job. The text describes the life of a tulip the same as it describes that of a handmaid, stating, “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). This description of the flowers almost exactly parallels the life of a handmaid. To the republic, there is no difference between handmaids and their job, they are one in the same.

Offred's Unreliable Narration

“It isn’t a story I’m telling.

It’s also a story I’m telling, in my head, as I go along” (p. 39).

Throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred frequently reminds us that this story is a “reconstruction”, that she is telling us what happened, and that that is all we get to know. This idea first comes up on page 39, when Offred is spiraling, saying she wishes she was telling a story and she wants someone to tell her story too. At this point in the text, I was so overwhelmed by this new society that the book takes place in, all of the characters, and the lack of backstory that I glossed over this section, not recognizing that Offred was essentially admitting to being an unreliable narrator.

The first time her narration really made me stop to question the story’s reliability was when she described Moira’s escape. In this section, Offred recounts events that she heard from Janine, who heard them from Aunt Lydia, who heard them from Aunt Elizabeth. This roundabout source is questionable to begin with, but Offred takes it one step further and adds details that she thinks probably happened: “I could kill you, you know, said Moira, when Aunt Elizabeth was safely stowed out of sight behind the furnace…Just remember I didn’t, if it ever comes to that. Aunt Lydia didn’t repeat any of this part to Janine, but I expect Moira said something like it” (p. 132). Offred has no source for this line of dialogue, only her familiarity with Moira and knowledge of events leading up to and following the alleged conversation. This made me wonder if Offred might have made up any other aspects of the story. We know that not everything she hears may be reliable, like the news, but could she have added in or taken out other important information from the narrative?

Just as the chapter on Moira’s escape casts doubt on the narration’s reliability, the very next chapter begins with the lines “This is a reconstruction. All of it is a reconstruction” (p. 134). Offred even tells us that “It’s impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances…” (p. 134). Here, she is fully admitting that her words are not always reliable and true. She doesn’t seem to have ill intentions behind her questionable narration, but she does appear resigned to the fact that she will never achieve full honesty in her retellings. So we’re left with the knowledge that Offred’s memory poses a threat to her narration and creates this idea of the story being a “reconstruction”.

This frustrated me. I understood that Offred might not be able to recount details perfectly, especially when so much of the story takes place in the past, but it felt like she wasn’t even trying to be accurate. When describing her first time meeting up with the Commander in secret, Offred says, “I think about the blood coming out of him, hot as soup, sexual, over my hands. In fact I don’t think about anything of the kind. I put it in only afterwards. Maybe I should have thought about that, at the time, but I didn’t. As I said, this is a reconstruction” (p. 140). This section particularly irritated me. Why would she mislead us in the first place, telling us false information, just to end with a “Sike! That was a lie”? But in looking for someone to blame, I felt like I had to focus on Atwood, not Offred. Why had Atwood made this narrative choice? The story is already fiction, so she could write it however she wanted. Why not just give us reliable scenes? Particularly in the first third of the book, it was so hard keeping up with this new and disturbing society that having to question everything Offred says on top of it all just felt insulting.

But as my understanding of Offred’s world and her character expanded, I realized that the unique narration is as important as the setting and the characters. We learn about Offred through the way she tells her story, and end up with a better understanding of her role and how she views herself. When Offred says that she wishes this was a story she was telling, we recognize her desperation and the hardships she’s been put through. And because she’s recounting events from the past, she’s already had time to analyze and draw messages from her experiences. For example, describing a lesson from Aunt Lydia, Offred says “[Men] only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good…Aunt Lydia did not actually say this, but it was implicit in everything she did say” (p. 144). In a way, Offred makes some things easier for the reader by delivering information directly, even if the exact facts are a bit off. So while her inaccuracies can be jarring at times, I think the unique narration style adds a layer of depth to the story that it might not have otherwise.

Lit Log #1- Personal Reflection

One part of The Handmaid’s Tale that really stuck out to me was when we were learning about how Offred thinks about her daughter. She starts off saying “she fades, I cant keep her here with me, she’s gone now. Maybe I do think of her as a ghost, the ghost of a dead girl,”. Reading this surprised me at first, because I had believed that she kept hope that Luke was alive somewhere, but with her daughter she’s given up all hope that she would be alive. Part of me felt like she kept hope of Luke being alive as a coping mechanism to get through the horrible situation she is in, but she didn’t think of her daughter as alive. I wonder if subconsciously she is trying to save her daughter from being in her situation, and bringing her into her reality. While I thought the thought of Luke gave her hope, the wound of being separated from her daughter is still so fresh.

Later in the story she says “ ..and think about a girl who did not die when she was five; who still exists, I hope, though not for me. Do I exist for her? Am I a picture somewhere, in the dark at the back of her mind.” . This part was really interesting to me because when she asks the question about whether she exists to her daughter it made me feel genuine sadness for her. I don’t know what it’s like to be a mother, but judging off my mom, and other mothers, the pain of having to abandon your child must be unbearable. I think that she understands that she can make it through this, so the hard part is not being there for the one she cares for most. The pain of unintentionally abandoning your child must be one of the worst feelings a human can feel.

Another thing relating to family to me that isn't obviously about family is when offred was talking about playing scrabble with the commander. The quote that stuck out to me was “To be asked to play scrabble, instead, as if wwe were an old married couple, or two children, seemed kinky in the extreme, a violation in its own way.”. To me this moment also felt uncomfortable because it's a weird power dynamic where she cant say no. In my personal life I've always seen boardgames and other activities of that manner as a bonding experience. As a kid I have memories of playing board games with my uncles and how special that was to me. I remember sitting around my uncles dining room table, past my bedtime, with my uncles all yelling over each other, and laughing, so board games have a sweet aftertaste when I think about them. From what I understand other people's families also have some sort of game nights, so I've always seen it as a safe spot of sorts. The fact that the commander has so much power over her, and could have her killed at the snap of his fingers, it's a cold and serious activity, with a lot to lose. Playing with my family, things get heated, but there's nothing to lose and the stakes are low. When the game ends everyone continues talking, but in this situation the game ends and she's still in her own personal hell. Something that's interesting to me is how scrabble almost feels more intimate then the monthly sex that they had. Board games in my life have always been a family thing, but Offred already has a family that she was separated from, so the commander making her play scrabble seems like another way to show her the power he holds over her.  

While I'm writing about how this book makes me feel and it puts into perspective the system that Gilead has that breaks down every human aspect of the handmaids. They take away consent, free speech, self expression, and their families. Gilead takes women and robs them of their humanity. Self expression is so big in our daily lives, that I didn't realize how hard it would be to lose all of that and my family. Gilead's system seems specifically tailored to dehumanize women, so that men won't feel bad about treating them however they want. I leave this personal reflection feeling less disgusted by specific incidents, but instead the systematic dehumanization of the handmaids.  

Women's Unspoken Rules

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.

Where Do the Unbabies Go?

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.

Lit Log #1
Lit Log #1

Lit Log #1 - Valeria Escobar

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.

Screenshot 2023-10-13 2.22.08 PM
Screenshot 2023-10-13 2.22.08 PM
Link to “Daily Portrait of a Woman” https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/yxa850/daily_portrait_of_a_woman_woldemar_von_kozack/

The chords of freedom and imprisonment

-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

"Her fault"

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.

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Who's In The bathroom

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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.

An Almost In-Depth Comparison of Gilead to Mormonism

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.

LiT Log 1

                 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.

The Dark Room

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Screenshot 2023-10-13 130826

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.

Josie Barsky - Lit Log 1

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.

Dress Code and Iran

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.

GILEAD'S PLACEHOLDER WHETHER DEAD OR ALIVE

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.

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Words of Condemnation

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

Colors and Style and the Message Behind Them

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.

"Perfect"

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.

Bare the Seed of the Fruit

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/

Handmaid’s Tale Lit Log #1 - Michelle Ie
Handmaid’s Tale Lit Log #1 - Michelle Ie