The first song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song Grieving by Leith Ross. Grieving is, unsurprisingly, a song about grief. More specifically about Ross grieving her past and her female ancestors, seen by the lyrics, “I never will stop grieving, Who we are when we are young, For my grandmother, her children, And who I never will become”. These lyrics really strike me, as they encapsulate everything I see in Offred’s emotions and grief. Similar to Ross, Offred misses her mother and often reflects on the life she could’ve lived but now seemingly may never get the chance to. All of this and more, make Grieving by Leith Ross the headlining song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist.

The second song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song More by Halsey. This is a song about longing for a kid, and more specifically about the yearning and feelings of loss after having a miscarriage. This song encapsulates for me some of the ways that Offred is feeling throughout the book, as she has gone through a similar experience, with her child being taken away from her rather than having a misscarriage. We see this in moments like when Offred is at the doctor, reminiscing on her past with her daughter, when she thinks to herself, “She fades, I can’t keep her here with me, she’s gone now. Maybe I do think of her as a ghost, the ghost of a dead girl, a little girl who died when she was five”.

The third song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song Witches by Alice Phoebe Lou. This song being about her pushes and pulls of dependence and independence throughout different parts of different relationships, reminds me of Offred and her Commander’s current relationship and power dynamics. Additionally, Lou’s symbolic use of witches in the song as representations of female empowerment and how men/societies often fear that kind of self respect and power in women is very powerful and makes me think of how Offred’s mom and her group of feminists was said to have acted by Offred when she said, “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. Some of them were chanting; onlookers gathered. Their faces were happy, ecstatic almost.” This act of burning derogatory feminine portrayals is reminiscent of witches being burned at the stake.

The fourth song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song Pretty Girl by Clairo. Pretty girl is about the singer, Clairo feeling like she’s changing herself too much for a relationship and trying too hard to please her partner, seen in the lyrics, “And I could be a pretty girl, I’ll lose myself in you”. Eventually, this relationship ends and she feels like she is better off. I get similar feelings to these when reading Offred and the Handmaid’s forced efforts to please the commander to stay in their position, because, while bad, it’s better off than they could be as unwomen. I imagine if the Handmaids are ever free, or the system ever changes they will feel similarly to how Clairo felt after the end of the aforementioned relationship.

The fifth and final song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song Money In The Grave by Drake and Rick Ross. This song is a 180 from the other songs on this playlist, and that’s for a reason. It’s so different because this song connects to how the commander is feeling and acting throughout the first couple dozen chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale. Lyrics like, “I got hoes that I’m keepin’ in the dark, I got my niggas ‘cross the street livin’ large”, make me think of how the commander is hiding a relationship with Offred and how he and the other men are the only people in the world who are, “livin’ large” and have power/wealth. Offred stating that, “The Commander is the head of the household. The house is what he holds. To have and to hold, till death do us part”, has a similar feeling to Drake saying, “I don’t wanna change ‘cause I’m good where I’m at”. They are both saying that the position of the man in power, The Commander/Drake, isn’t changing anytime soon. Overall, my playlist encapsulates the feeling and actions of a variety of characters in The Handmaid’s Tale, from the obvious, Offred, to the more obscure characters like The Commander and Offred’s mother.

Our map is the map of an active warzone. There is a war raging between the Cheese, and the Rodents over land and power. So far neither side has taken advantage in the war, but both armies are preparing.

https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/q2-visitorsguide/introduction