The Handmaid's Tale-Simply Ceremonial

What was probably one of the most difficult scenes to read, allowed for a great deal of interpretation...and possible controversy. I interpreted this scene to be taking a stab at the Bible. The idea of Virgin Mary is shown through the graphic scene of “the Ceremony,” where the Commander is to impregnate is wife, through his Handmaid. Offred explains, “She [Serena Joy] holds my hands, each of mine in each of hers. This is supposed to signify that we are one flesh, one being. What is really means is that she is in control, of the process and thus the product” (Atwood 94). Atwood is clearly taking a stab at the Bible, noting the irony that exists. Many passages of the Bible preach to treasure women for they are the bearers of children, while at the same time, Mary, mother of Jesus, is said to be a virgin, and therefore did not take advantage of her womanhood. When a Handmaid gives birth to a child, the Wives assume all responsibility, and are said to have given birth to the child themselves. The name “the Ceremony” reflects the idea that sexual interaction is simply ceremonial, something that is done without the necessity of love or interest. This is just one of the many clever satiric biblical allusions used throughout this work.

"Grayness comes through the curtains, hazy bright, not much sun today. I get out of bed, go to the window, kneel on the window seat, the hard little cushion, FAITH, and look out. There is nothing to be seen. I wonder what had become of the other two cushions. There must have been three once. HOPE and CHARITY, where have they been stowed? (110)."

This quote caught my attention immediately because of the clearly emphasized words: faith, hope, and charity. Interestingly, the cushion that reads "FAITH" is described as "hard" and "little." Faith means a myriad of things in this novel, the most obvious being the faith in God that sets the foundation of Gilead. The other prevalent uses of faith are faith in oneself and faith in change for the better, which go hand-in-hand. The hardness of the cushion is representative of the foundation of Gilead, the faith in God that is forced int his suppressed society. The hardness could also represent the struggle that Offred finds herself having with faith and God. "If God exists, how could he do this to his people?" is an expressed mindset. The cushion is described as small because while faith may create the basis of Gilead, it is not enough to create happiness amongst the people. Although Offred may kneel on the cushion and kneel on faith, its size makes it unstable. The line "there is nothing to be seen" could be indicative of her lack of "sight" of and faith in God. Charity can mean Christian love or aid to the helpless, both of which are lacking in Gilead, just as the pillows' locations are unknown to Offred. Hope, meaning the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that what happens next will turn out for the best, is also absent from Gilead.

While I found several instances in this book where graphic chapters were difficult to read, I think that the way Atwood incorporated her personal opinions of various social issues and religion is brilliant. The though development of Offred was so clear and so personal that I grew some sort of personal attachment to the character. My favorite character was Moira. I loved how she represented the strength in women (as described at the beginning of the novel) and then represented a collapse due to desperation and acquired weakness (Jezebel's). I feel as though this book had the most to discuss out the ones we've read thus far and enjoyed the class discussions on this novel most. This was my favorite book of the marking period.

Anthem- "We love you"

"Today the golden one stopped suddenly and said, 'We love you' [...] 'No,' they whispered, 'that is not what we wished to say.' They were silent, then they spoke slowly, and words were halting, like the words of a child learning to speak for the first time. 'We are one...alone...and only...and we love you who are one...alone...and only.' We looked into each other's eyes and we knew that the breath of a miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping vainly. And we felt torn for some word we could not find" (Rand 86).

This quote sums up the role emotions play in Anthem. Emotions become jumbled due to the lack of impersonality and the single word, or letter, "I." The line "we love you," rather than translating to someone deep emotional connection and longing, it says "I, and the government that controls my every move and every other person in this society, loves you." The feeling of love is so personal, that i don't believe that love should really even have a definition. Love cannot be taught, but learned, acquired, and experienced. I found this line particularly saddening. The Golden One has found her love and yet, she has been so suppressed by society, that she does not know how to inform Equality of her love. Each character in this novel is named by a number. Typically, numbers define items, dates, time, inanimate objects, all things that cannot experience or define emotion. The numbers reminded me of the Holocaust, which was arguably the most horrid treatment of mankind in history.

Light represents the acquisition of knowledge and truth. Liberty 5-3000 becomes the Golden One, a color reference to light and Equality 7-2521 becomes Prometheus, the bringer of light. Equality creates the light bulb, which is almost always associated with knowledge or a sudden thought. The town in which Anthem takes place, is described as colorless and overcast, which symbolizes the lack of knowledge and individuality. In the haziness of this society, human nonconformity and genius is shunned. Light is what brings light (no pun intended) to the superior knowledge that is buried within the suppressed people of the society. The creation of the light by Equality, not only gives him a sense of accomplishment, but a sense of self as well. The creation of the light gives him the drive to break the barrier of the society and cross into the woods and the land of the unknown.

The simple sentence structure and short chapters kept my attention and I found myself being able to get through numerous chapters in one sitting. I really enjoyed this book. I loved the scene where the Golden One and Prometheus find their future home and discover the power of books and the unknown word: I. I loved the idea of the creation of an alternate society that was the polar opposite of the world they came from. The one scene that really frustrated me was the scene in which Equality presents the House of Scholars with his creation, and they feared it! What kind of scholars are they? Truth be told, I feel as though these men were fully capable of utilizing their minds but were afraid of their societal restraints. With just a few words, Rand was able to powerfully portray a world that fears human error and embraces conformity.

We-I'll just factor you out of my equation

Throughout the course of his Records, D-503 struggles with understanding his own emotions as well as the motives of the ones around him. His confusion in response to his immediate attraction to I-330 is explained in comparison to an irrational number. “This woman was just as irritating to me as an irrational term that accidentally creeps into your equation and can’t be factored out,” (10). Proven here, is the fact that mathematics is not always certain, and unattainable ideas, such as infinity and a never-ending number cannot be fully grasped by the human mind, similarly to D-503’s feelings of love and personal preference. Often times in math, when one does not want to directly deal with an irrational number, it is used in another form. For example, the square root of two is an irrational decimal, but instead of using it in the decimal form, it is written as √2. When one finds themselves facing a dilemma or a reality that they do not wish to deal with, it will often be pushed aside and excuses will be made, similarly to hiding the irrationality of the square root of two. When D-503 becomes fully acquainted with his feelings of love for I-330, he disguises these feelings as hate, which is an emotion much more familiar and comfortable to him than love. I loved this quote because i enjoyed to clever parallels drawn between love and mathematics.

Interstingly, each book we've read about utopias/disutopias have a wall of some sort. However, this wall I found to be particularly intriguing. What does this Wall represent and why, of all colors is it the color green? At the surface, the Wall is representative of a boundary,both physically andm entally. Physically, the Wall retains the members of OneState and confines them to their orderly, restrictive world away from the wild and untamed ways of nature. Mentally, OneState and the Wall restrict analytical thinking of ideas that cannot be taken at face value. Feelings and emotions, things that need to be experienced in order to be understood (and maybe still remain a mystery), are rationalized to the point where emotions become impersonal.

Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Green has great healing power. It is the most restful color for the human eye; it can improve vision. Green suggests stability and endurance. Sometimes green denotes lack of experience. While green symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility (things found in nature), these things are found on the opposite side of the Wall. There is not growth of the mind present in OneState, and harmony may exist to some extent, but it is a forced, ignorant harmony. Green symbolized safety, just as the Wall represents safety for the Benefactor and other governing bodies. The Wall does not allow for the members of OneState to obtain the outside knowledge they need to revolt against their suppression. Green denotes the lack of experience. The people of OneState are very inexperienced with emotions, causing internal struggles that lead to feelings of guilt for D-503 as he feels that he is breaking the laws of the Benefactor.

I must first establish that I am not a fan of science fiction or futuristic novels. While I did not particularly enjoy the plot of this story, I really enjoyed the development of D-503. The insight into his mind and the descriptions of the world around him provided me with a vivid picture of this surreal lifestyle. I found myself having to reread a page when I realized I had not actually been paying attention to what I was reading. I did enjoy the inclass discussions on this book though (which tends to be my favorite part of reading any book for school) and the immense amount of symbolism and use of satiric writing provided me with much to think about and relate to society today.

"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum"

If you can't say it, sing it. Margaret Atwood wrote of a totalitarian theocracy with copious numbers of biblical allusions to create a suppressive society. U2 created and performed a motivational song about escaping the burdens of an unwanted lifestyle. Through the use of syntax, diction, and detail U2 produced "Acrobat," a song motivating one girl to find a cause to rebel and fight, as though they were singing this song to Offred.

The lack of fluidity and shortness of sentences mirror Offred's thoughts in The Handmaid's Tale. The bluntness shows frustration, and translates a sense of hopelessness. The use of repetition in the song ("And I can love, and I can love...) reminds me of the numerous times Offred needs to repeat herself in attempt to keep Luke, Moira, her child, and her old way of life close to her.

In class, the point about anthropology was brought up and the issue of ethics vs. morals. If you saw a society that you thought had customs that were inhuman, would you take a step and try to stop it? Mostly everyone could agree that they want to see what's best for mankind and would want to intervene. However, do we ever intervene in time?It seems as though in the course of history the United States has stepped back and watch numerous countries suffer (Irish potato famine, Stalin's dictatorship, Hitler). Although these are not cultures, these are examples of crises that the world chose to ignore, making each and every one of us, to some degree, a hypocrite. The line "I must be an acrobat to talk like this and act like that," indicates hypocrisy. Acrobat, in this context does not mean a circus performer, but rather someone who readily changes viewpoints and opinions. Offred describes this longing for change in the line, "If you don't like it, change it we said, to eacother and to ourselves (226).

"If you only knew who to hit, and I'd join the movement, if there was one I could believe in. Yeah I'd break bread and wine, if there was a church I could receive in." Movements, like the women's rights movement mentioned in The Handmaid's Tale with Moira, and religion are two aspects of an organized society that are meant to give people a sense of fulfillment and purpose. However, these lines suggest that these things are not available in this society, just as the suppressed society of Gilead had nothing of meaning to offer its people.

While this song seems very correlated to Offred, the lyrics mirror the character of Moira, as well. At the beginning of the novel Moira defies the limits to establish herself as a free, motivated women who has enough self-respect to announce her sexual orientation. However by the end of the novel Offred finds her chained down to society suppression as a prostitute as Jezebels. The line, "When I first met you girl, you had fire in your soul. What happened your face of melting snow," is a prefect line describing Moira's initial dignity which was morphed into desperation and seclusion.

The lines "And I can love, and I can love" can be compared to the line, "You would look at the man one day and think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done," (226). These lines suggest that love is the single force that can drive a person to break the chains of suppression. "Love is not the point," (227) said Aunt Lydia. And yet, love was the point. Is.

"No new ideas in the house and every book has been read," suggest that ideas of revolution lie is books and literature, however in Gilead, the only book available was the Bible, and even women could not have access to that. In saying that "every book has been read" it suggests that every idea, and all knowledge has been exhausted and the mind can no longer house the strenght to pose questions that could lead to a new life.