A Handmaid's truble
A Handmaid’s tail. “I’ve learned to do without a lot of things. If you have a lot of things, said Aunt Lydia, you get too attached to this material world and you forget about spiritual values. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed are the meek. She didn’t go on to say anything about inheriting the earth.” (64) In The Handmaid’s Tale, there are many examples of no control. No control over actions, a society that deprives women of decisions. This quote shows this in more than one way. Aunt Lydia exemplifies this through saying, “You must cultivate poverty of spirit.” Saying to Offrend that this world is not where she can have hopes and dreams. One must keep the spirit low to conform to the standards of the Aunts, Handmaids, and Men in this society.
Aunt Lydia also implies that the Handmaids are meant to be deprived of their experiences. Meant not to hold on to the experience, but a vehicle of the experience. In later chapters, this is shown through Janine’s birthing process. Janine, the handmaid, got her experience stolen from her by the commander’s wife. Having the Commander’s wives be the main witness, the main birthing mother, the main character. While the Handmaids stand there and watch as this birthing ritual detracts from Janine, it is to the Commander’s wife. Taking away the “things” of the Handmaid that Aunt Lydia says that Offred doesn’t have a lot of.
This, in a way, internalizes and reinforces the brainwashing effect on Offred. It turns Aunt Lydia’s advice into another avenue of brainwashing. A repeated voice that says women, especially handmaids, don’t have any power over their bodies, experiences, or autonomy. The role that Offrend is put into makes one character question what part she has to fill. What was her purpose of existence in the land of Gilad? Later in the paragraph of the first quote, it says, “ I lie, lapped by the water, beside an open drawer that does not exist, and think about a girl who did not die when she was five; who still does exist, I hope, though not for me. Do I exist for her? Am I pictured somewhere, in the dark at the back of her mind? – They were right, it’s easier to think of her as dead. I don’t have to hope then, or make a wasted effort.” Her questioning about life made Offred think about her daughter. Her only real hope is that Offred exist in this society. Although Offred doesn’t have a lot to begin with, there is a sense of longing that is exemplified through the quote. If her daughter does remember her like Offred does with her mother, what would that mean for Offred? It seems that her daughter being alive is keeping her going, making her hope for a future. But this gets negated as others in the story say it’s too useless for her to hope to meet again. Having this attachment to her daughter allows it to be deprived of Offred. Everything in society points to Handmaids having no attachment to anything personal. Forced to live a perpetual state of existing only for her body, and not her mind.
When Aunt Lydia speaks to Offred, there is always an underlying tone of how to live in this world. Explaining to Offred the societal pressures of being a handmaid and what the outcomes of such handmaids are. With Aunt Lydia’s explanations, there is an expression of hopelessness. That’s where she is in life; it’s going to end there. While giving Offred advice on how to live. But what she teaches Offred often changes Offred’s whole viewpoint of life. Exemplify the “keeping your head down mentality.” Avoid all troubles and ignore them. This comes with Offred’s attachment to her daughter; it’s ended by Aunt Lydia saying it’s easier to say her daughter was dead. Brainwashing Offred into a person who is more submissive, although not intentionally.
This, in turn, gives a kind of metaphor, where it’s easier to ignore and forget attachment, but that leaves a person unsatisfied with their own life. Making the oppress wonder what kind of world I would live in if I were not pushed down without any forewarning.
