Thoughts that Fill the Wall
The picture itself is designed to address the abstract themes and subjects of Offred’s thoughts and imagination. The background is set as what I picture the Wall looks like, with gray brick holding up the bodies killed by the rules of Gilead.
Offred is pictured through her uniform, with the bright crimson cloth covering her head to toe, except for the white veil over her head. The cigarette in her mouth represents hope and the things she wishes for as written on page 14, “The cigarettes must have come from the black market, I thought, and this gave me hope.” (14) Behind her is a wide arrangement of flowers, which represent the comparisons she has been making through the book related to flowers and seeds. She notes them when she says, “I go out the back door, into the garden, which is large and tidy: a lawn in the middle, a willow, weeping catkins; around the edges, the flower borders, in which the daffodils are now fading and the tulips are opening their cups, spilling out color,” (12), and again, “There’s a dried flower arrangement on either end of the mantelpiece, and a vase of real daffodils on the polished marquetry end table by the sofa.” (80). When Offred notices details in the setting she often talks about the flowers.
There were many artistic choices I made about what to put up on the wall, and I really wanted the Wall to hold the things that are stuck in her mind. Those thoughts seem to be mostly taken up by Luke, her daughter, her mother, and Moira. Luke is represented on the wall through the empty noose. Offred describes her feelings about the bodies on the Wall and her uncertainty on where Luke is in the world now, and whether he is alive or dead, “These bodies on the Wall are time travelers, anachronisms. They’ve come here from the past. What I feel towards them is blankness. What I feel is that I must not feel. What I feel is partly relief because none of these men is Luke. Luke wasn’t a doctor. Isn’t.” (33) In the quote she uses the past tense “wasn’t” and then switches to the present tense “isn’t,” and this demonstrates her uncertainty on Luke’s wellbeing that continues to plague her throughout the whole book, as seen when she dreams of him, “Luke, I say. He doesn’t answer. Maybe he doesn’t hear me. It occurs to me that he may not be alive,” (74) and when she thinks about what could have happened to him, “What is left of him: his hair, the bones, the plaid wool shirt, green and black, the leather belt, the work boots.” (104).
Her daughter is represented through the picture of a girl on the wall. I attached the photo to a rope in order to symbolize that the daughter Offred knows is now “dead” as she has been transformed to fit society in the same way Offred has. This can be seen when Atwood writes Offred’s memories, “You’ve killed her, I said. She looked like an angel, solemn, compact, made of air. She was wearing a dress I’d never seen, white and down to the ground.” (39)
Offred’s mother is represented through the body with overalls hanging on the Wall. This, similar to Luke, represents her uncertainty of what happened to her mother. In a memory of Offred’s she says, “I didn’t see why she had to dress that way, in overalls, as if she were young; or to swear so much.” (180). Even with their complicated relationship, Offred still yearns to see her mother, which is seen through the quote, “I wish she were here, so I could tell her I finally know this.” (181).
The last person who seems to fill Offred’s thoughts is her best friend, Moira. Offred voices Moria through her subconscious, providing commentary on the things happening in her life through what she believes Moira would say about it, and she also quotes things Moira has said, almost as if they are rules she ought to try and live by, “You can’t help what you feel, Moira once said, but you can help how you behave.” (192)
Moira’s name is written in scrabble letters because another thing that Offred dreams of is freedom from the new Gilead and society she has been forced to conform to. Offred describes the scrabble letters, “I hold the glossy counters with their smooth edges, finger the letters. This feeling is voluptuous. This is freedom, an eyeblink of it.” (139). Overall, all of the things represented in the picture and on the wall are things out of reach for Offred in her life now, and things she wishes she could have.
