Bag of Bones (Mitski): In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred and all the other Handmaids are used for their bodies, so much so that they become detached from them in a way that I think Mitski articulates very well in the song Bag of Bones. On page 73, Offred is remembering how she used to feel so positively about all the things her body was able to do for her, but says, “Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congeled around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.”. This description made me think about the song Bag of Bones and specifically the lyric, “And after everything’s done and I’m all undone, You can hear my high heels walking on, Clickity-clacking through the night, I’m carrying my bag of bones”. The way Offred describes her body as flesh, unreal, and unfamiliar to her gave me the same feeling as Mitski describing her body as a bag of bones. Her body belongs to Gilead, the Commander, and the Wife, and they’ve undone her. All her body is is a bag of bones that no longer serves her.

The Other Woman (Lana Del Rey): This was one of the first songs I thought of when brainstorming for this project. The song is about a relationship between a married couple and the woman that the husband is cheating with. It shows mostly the perspective of the ‘other woman’, and so it felt like a very direct parallel to the situation in The Handmaid’s Tale when Offred is in a secret relationship with the Commander. In the song, the wife is compared to the other woman, who is seemingly perfect and has all the things the wife doesn’t. One lyric that made me think about the book is: “The other woman keeps fresh-cut flowers in each room.”. On page 81 of the book, Offred observes the embroidered flowers covering Serena Joy’s dress, saying, “Even at her age she still feels the urge to wreath herself in flowers. No use for you, I think at her, my face unmoving, you can’t use them anymore, you’re withered. They’re the genital organs of plants. I read that somewhere once.” In this scene, flowers are a symbol of fertility and are one way in which Offred feels above the Wife, connecting back to ideas of the song. While the Wife has the advantage of class and money, it can’t compare to Offred’s priceless fertility.

Greenlight (Lorde): This song reminds me a lot of the relationship between Offred and the Commander. When Lorde sings, “I know about what you did and I wanna scream the truth, She thinks you love the beach, you’re such a damn liar.” It reminds me of the moment between Offred and the Commander right after their first meeting. “I think about how I could approach the Commander, to kiss him, here alone, and take off his jacket, as if to allow or invite something further, some approach to true love, and put my arms around him and slip the lever out from the sleeve and drive the sharp end into him suddenly, between the ribs,”. Offred feels violent towards him after he asks her to kiss him, but she’s not angry about the kiss; she knows that there are other unspoken things that he wants from her. The game of Scrabble is innocent, but the power dynamic is not. “Those great whites, they have big teeth, hope they bite you,” is another lyric from this song. In this scene, the Commander is the great white shark; he has the power of class and patriarchy over Offred, and she is anxiously aware of this from the start.

Little Freak (Harry Styles): Although this song is about a romantic relationship, I thought it did a good job of capturing the complicated relationship between Offred and her mother. The song describes a relationship where they didn’t seem to understand each other, and mistakes were made, but they still think about each other after they break up. The lyric, “I disrespected you, jumped in feet first, and I landed too hard,” and repetition of, “I’m just thinkin’ about you,” in the chorus show a similar tension to the one between Offred and her mother described on page 122: “We used to fight about that. I am not your justification for existence, I said to her once. I want her back. I want everything back, the way it was.” They didn’t always agree on things, and Offred remembers and regrets the moments she pushed back against her mother. In the end, Offred thinks they are trivial things, and just wants to see her mother again.

How to Disappear (Lana Del Rey): I wanted to include this song because it reminded me of the way Offred forces herself to forget memories from her life before. Sometimes, she wants to fully integrate herself into her Gilead life, while her memories hold her back emotionally. Other times, she feels happy remembering things, like on page 226, as she is remembering the feeling of love, she says, “There is a good deal of comfort in remembering this,”. While part of Offred is convinced that Luke is dead or imprisoned, there is another part of her that believes he is alive and going to save her. The lyric, “As I whisper in your ear, I’m always going to be right here, No one’s going anywhere,” reminds me of this part of her that remembers her love for him, and the comfort it brings her. Part of what keeps her going is the slight possibility that Luke and her daughter are ok, and they will be reunited at the end.

Link to Lit Log Doc, if you want the song links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mkGqyHhfewLB0g0v0CDhqVK41hJEtynjZtHsnWB7g9k/edit?usp=sharing

Nell Hornsby
Ms. Pahomov
College English
September 26, 2025

In my artwork, I portray the tourism scene from Chapter 5 of The Handmaid’s Tale. I chose this scene from the book because it stuck out to me as one really formative moment in the reader’s understanding of the story. This scene is one of the few times we see people within Gilead interacting with people outside, and it gives us more context on this society and its relation to our world. It’s also a self-reflective moment for Offred as she realizes how much she’s changed while being here. I remember feeling engaged in the class discussion and excited to dig deeper into my interpretation of this moment, which is why I chose it for my first Lit Log.

One of the first elements I knew I wanted to include in my artwork was the portrayal of the Handmaids as animals in a cage. During our discussion on chapters 5-7, it was mentioned that there was “a curiosity, like a zoo” between the narrator and the tourists. I really clung to this idea as I was drafting out this project because I thought there were some really interesting elements to it. First, I think the society of Gilead makes it easy to compare the Handmaids to animals in a zoo. They have little to no choice, but are fed and exercised, and, in this scene, are on display for the tourists, similar to zoo animals. Second, there is a really big theme around the “protection” of the Handmaid’s body. The Aunts tell the Handmaids early on that, “What you must be, girls, is impenetrable.” (28). They wear large cloaks and wings covering their faces to restrict the contact they can have with other people. The idea of the Handmaids being caged in these ways can deepen the simile of zoo-like curiosity in this scene.

There was a lot of thought that went into choosing which animal I wanted the Handmaids to be in my drawing. In the end, I chose to portray them as parrots because while parrots have the ability to talk, they can only repeat things that they hear. This was inspired by the end of Chapter 5, when the tourists ask Offred and her walking partner if they are happy. Offred knows she has to respond because saying nothing is dangerous, but there seems to be only a few acceptable things that she can say. She is equally as scared to say the wrong thing as she is to say nothing at all. Her response is “Yes, we are very happy,” and the chapter ends with the line, “I have to say something. What else can I say?” (29). Both Offred and the parrots have a limited vocabulary that is influenced by what their higher-ups tell them.

There are some other smaller elements to my artwork, like the “revealing” clothing the tourists wear, the shiny hair that the narrator describes, the camera, and–even though it’s not directly in this scene–I added a Martha cleaning the Handmaid’s cage to represent their dynamic throughout the book. The final thing I wanted to emphasize in my reflection, though, was the eye. The idea of the Eye comes up many times throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, but it has an important role in the tourism scene when Offred thinks, “I know better than to look the interpreter in the face. Most of the interpreters are Eyes, or so it’s said.” (28). This serves as a reminder to both the narrator and the reader that in Gilead, they are always being watched. Every word has to be calculated, and a wrong move can be dangerous. By putting a big focus on the eye, I want to remind the viewer of the pressure of this situation.

Geometry Benchmark from Quarter 2. It is a made-up city called Food City.

The importance of a true friend.