A Handmaid's Tale

Analysis: The color red

The color red is very prevalent in Margaret Atwood's novel A Handmaid's Tale. Red is the color that all the Handmaid's must wear. Red is a color that means many things. First of all, it stand for fertility. By wearing the red gown that all Handmaids must wear, they are publicly advertising their job; they cannot get away from it. Their job is to produce children not for themselves, but for their society (more specifically for the Wife they are assigned too.) As well as advertising their job, it also advertises their sin. Gilead is ran with a huge religion factor. They believe it is religious to have the Handmaids, but the Handmaids are technically committing adultery with the Commanders. It is a constant reminder of the sanctioned sin that the government is saying it is okay. In Gilead, people no longer live by the Bible but instead the twisted version that the government feeds them.

Red also stands for sex and sexual pleasure. This is slightly ironic because although the Handmaid's are forced to have sex with the Commanders, there is absolutely no pleasure between anyone at the Ceremony, whether it is the Commander, Offred, or the Wife. Women are no longer free to choose who their sexual partners may be. By wearing a symbol of something that is supposed to bring pleasure and is often tied with love and affection, Offred is only reminded of the dreaded night of the Ceremony that occurs every month.

Offred notices red throughout the book. There are red tulips when she is in Serena Joy's garden. She picked out how the tulip to her looks like a womb. Serena Joy cannot have children so instead she raises and nurtures red tulips, a reminder of her infertility and how there is really no other way that she can contribute to this society, except by standing pretty on her husbands arm.

Although we know that Offred is called Offred because she is "of Fred", I do believe there is a deeper meaning to that name. I believe Atwood choose that name because it can be read many different ways. Personally, I read it as "off-red." This meant that Offred was not fully bought into this cheap society. She had many many thoughts that she never spoke out loud. On the outside, she wore her red and did what she was supposed to do. She was a believer on the outside. But on the inside she hid her true thoughts and opinions on the society, too scared to express them because she knew what the government could do to her. She was not part of the organized resistance, but she definitely did not commit herself to this limiting society and their propaganda.

Passage Analysis: Pg96-97

"I rub the butter over my face, work it into the skin of my hands. There's no longer any hand lotion or face cream, not for us. Such things are considered vanities. We are containers, it's only the insides of our bodies that are important. The outside can become hard and wrinkled, for all they care, like the shell of a nut. This was a decree of the Wives, this absence of hand lotion. They don't want us to look attractive. For them, things are bad enough as it is.

....As long as we do this, butter our skin to keep it soft, we can believe that we will some day get out, that we will be touched again, in love or desire. We have ceremonies of our own, private ones.

The butter is greasy and it will go rancid and I will smell like an old cheese; but at least it's organic, as they used to say.

To such devices have we descended."

This quote tells a lot about the society norms in Gilead. Offred's role in her society is one of shame and disgust to many people around her. The Wives hate the Handmaid's so much that they deprive them of every simple pleasantry such as hand lotion. Being a Handmaid means that you are not supposed to look pleasing to other people, because then things could easily extend far past the unemotional relationship the Commanders are supposed to have with the Handmaids. The Handmaids are not meant for pleasure, and to be pleasing to the Commander during the Ceremony would then make it a sin. it is work only.

Not being allowed to use hand lotion also reinforces the fact that the Handmaids are in Gilead for one reason and one reason only: for their womb. It is another degrading gesture to the Handmaids. Their outsides can bee shrivled, so long as the Handmaid's internal organs (specifically her uterus) is intact. Taking care of your looks and being aesthetically pleasing to other people can fill someone up with joy and confidence. But because the Handmaid's really cannot keep up their outside look, it mentally takes them down another level, thinking that they are not as good as the Wives and other women.

Not taking care of their appearance also has another motive in Gilead. This way, the Handmaids cannot be alluring to other men. Women no longer can have any control or power over men, and making sure their appearances are not kept up makes it easier for men to "resist" and to stay in power. This can be seen in the beginning of the book when Offred walks pass the guard and moves her hips a little more dramatically. It pleases her knowing that maybe that made the guard attracted to her a little. Because everything pleasing about women has basically been stripped away and the Handmaids cannot exert their femininity in public (because they are required to wear such long gowns and bonnets) it makes it easier for the men to stay in power and control the women even more since the womens' self confidence and influence has decreased.


Offred wants to keep her skin soft and smooth so she can hope for a life outside of this one, so she can still keep a bit of her old self and pray that life can go back to normal. Such unimportant things like soft skin is the only bit of hope Offred can hang on to. Mentioning the use of something so domestic as "butter" shows the desperation this situation has come to. Using butter on her skin is a meaningless attempt to break the rules of Gilead and hopefully one day make society normal again.

Opinion:

I really liked this book. It was hard to get through the heavy and lengthy writing at some times, but I realize that it was that writing that made novel become so much more real and believable. The narrator described every single little event that happened to her and every thought that popped into her head. This makes Offred's character even more real, showing how much time she had on her hands and driving home the fact that she was only important and needed once a month, when the Ceremony occurred. I really did like the book. The author did a great job making this society believable. I usually have a hard time believing these made-up societies, but Gilead is now a solid place in my mind and I know the frightening and horrible tales of Offred will stay with me.

This book also brought up great and controversial issues. It made you stop and think how far you would let the government go and take over your personal rights before others around you would step up and fight back. The way people were taken over so quickly is a frightening thought, and the twisted nature of religion that the government used was down right disgusting. Although it may be more difficult for a government like that to take over the United States, it could still happen or is happening in many other parts of the world.