Marking Period 1 Blog: The Handmaid's Tale

Throughout The Handmaid's Tale, there were many symbols, but one that stuck out to me was the symbolism of the Handmaid's uniforms.  The wings on the uniform symbolize the irony of wings being an element of flying or freedom, and the Handmaids are not even allowed to look to their right or left or speak to anyone unless they are told.  There is no freedom involved whatsoever in the role of the Handmaid.  The uniforms colors were also red, symbolizing fertility.  The symbolism behind the Handmaid's uniform includes not having the personal right to wear what you want, or having to cover their entire body and face, but having to reveal themselves to a strange older man whom are only using them as a vessel is quite repulsive, absurd, and ironic in itself.  Atwood shows how the rights and say that women had in the past society before Gilead completely diminished all of the women's rights.

My favorite quote in The Handmaid's Tale is when Offred is speaking to the audience and says
 "This isn't a story I'm just telling.  It's also a story I'm telling in my head as I go along.  Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden.  But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone.  You don't tell a story to yourself, there is always someone else" (Atwood).  I enjoy this quote because it gives more of a personal insight and feel to Offred's circumstances in Gilead.  It also makes me feel more sympathy and more of an emotional connection to Offred throughout the novel.  I feel that I am the one listening to her story that she couldn't freely tell or vent to anyone about. This is making a special emotional connection between character and reader.

Personally, I enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale. Even though I do not agree the slightest bit with the society of Gilead, the story itself was very interesting.  I enjoyed the various use of allusion, word choice, and symbolism within the book which made it very hard to put down.  Even though there were very many explicit and extremist views within the book, it instilled fear in me to actually see how extreme some points of view can be and how detailed the extremist points in Gilead were actually carried out into action.