With the beginning of the end (senior year) coming around, whether we want it to or not, it becomes harder and harder to run away from the…..c word. Applying to college is something most young adults fear, the fear of trying to sum up the purpose of our life and your efforts into a few boxes is consuming. As we know, SAT scores and our grade point averages play a significant role in the school we get admitted to. Yet I don’t think enough people talk about the toll these submissions can have on not only your academic confidence but your overall sense of self-worth. We are taught that the numbers we work oh so hard far, will open doors, and push us to achieve our dreams, but no one told us about what happens when our results have us questioning our worth. It is without a doubt that each student has poured countless hours into their school work, yet with the competition becoming harder each day, and constant lowering of acceptance rates, it would be easy for admissions offices to look past all of our efforts. “I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely.”(pg 173) This quote from The Handmaid’s Tale, when Offred reflects on her own powerlessness, captures exactly how I feel when I see my test scores. Our worth is so much more than what numbers can represent. There is no world in which a human being—who they are and what they stand for—can be truly seen through numbers alone. What these numbers actually show us, specifically the SATs, is how long we can focus for. This had never been pointed out to me until I began my SAT tutoring, when I realized that my ADHD was going to affect not only my preparation for the test, but the outcome itself. Just as Gilead sorts people into handmaids, commanders, and marthas, our system creates its own rigid categories: the “1600 SAT score” students and the “4.0 GPA” students. The systematic process of labeling—both the characters in The Handmaid’s Tale and real-life students—is damaging because it strips away identity, reducing complex human beings to a single defining characteristic. “My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter.”(pg 84) Offred’s loss of her name reveals what happens when we’re reduced to our statistic. The difference is only in what we’re reduced to: the handmaids are stripped down to their bodies and fertility, while we students become nothing more than standardized exam scores and every grade we’ve received since we were 14. In both cases, everything that makes us who we are—our struggles, growth, is lost. My grades aren’t perfect. I can’t say I know many students whose are. But my intent is not to overlook the students who have worked tirelessly to achieve the numbers they have. It is to acknowledge our flawed academic system that encourages us to strip away our humanity in exchange for numbers. Because my grades are less a representation of myself and more a representation of what I’ve overcome, and the common app with never have enough room for my whole story.

In a world crafted from silence, an art piece can speak louder than any voice. This piece serves as a depiction of the underlying themes in The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. This piece explores a society where life and death, submission and rebellion, are woven into a single piece. It speaks for a story that requires depiction,attention to detail, and analysis. The focal point of the image lies in a small window, directly from Handmaid Offred’s Room. While inside the small window, it is filled with the color red. It’s devoted as a constant reminder of the color red throughout the story. The recurrence is less of a coincidence and more of an underlying theme. It represents the fertility, sacrifice, and violence endured by the people of Gilead. The women’s menstrual cycles don’t just play a significant role in their stories, but actually are the sole purpose of their existence. Their cycles can be seen as a sign of failure from the previous month, or a celebration of success at the sign of no blood. Similarly, it can be seen as the blood from childbirth, as it is the goal and terror of the life of a woman in Gilead. Likewise, readers may see the blood as a notion of public executions, intended to spread fear and threat. It may seem like a mure color, but it is intended by the author to be used as a constant reminder of the suffering of the people from Gilead, and what the women in particular have endured. It embodies the trauma held in the story within a single image. As for the window, it can be interpreted as a metaphor for containment. Filled with red inside, revealing the handmaids trapped within their system. The red handprints embody the countless number of women being dehumanized throughout the system. They are a sign of silent protest from the victims of Gilead, a sign of protest after years of silence, a break for escape.
Surrounding the window lay bouquets. They intend to show the unfufilled potential of the handmaids and wives. What they could be if their society gave them water and sunlight. They suggest hope in a world that feels hopeless, a sign of light, in a world full of darkness. They serve as a reminder that even in a world determined to oppress humanity and beauty, something will always push past its barriers and grow. For the window itself, it was the Handmaid, Offred’s only true connection to the outside world. It can be seen as a potential sign of escape, or just a sign for a future outside our field. The unidentified handprints illustrate the stripped identity of each woman, how they are visible, yet stripped of their names and stories, their identities being dulled down to a single purpose.
Ultimately, the art synthesizes the core depictions within The Handmaid’s Tale into a single image. It forces the reader to empathize with the lack of control the people of Gilead have. It embodies the oppression, fear, and trauma humans develop when they’re forced into a world of hatred.