My capstone is an original stained glass window that I designed and created in collaboration with Josie Silver. We worked with The Stained Glass Project, which was also both of our internships last year. The window will be installed in the main entrance of the school building, as a way to welcome everyone entering the community and to make the school a more beautiful place. The space theme is inspired by our school’s mascot, the Rockets. The process of making a stained glass window is very fixed and specific, and also takes a lot of time. In completing this project, I was able to expand on and further develop skills I already had. This was the biggest art project I’ve ever taken on, but I couldn’t be prouder of the finished product. I’m so excited to share it with my peers and the future of the SLA.

Quarantine left us all trapped in our homes and, seeing as there wasn’t much else to do, I spent a large majority of my time consuming all sorts of music, movies, Youtube videos, and TV shows. They became my escape from reality. Even though I was physically in my room, this media took me anywhere, across the country, across the ocean, or even to a whole other world. Bromden is trapped within the confines of the Ward, but he is able to mentally escape to his childhood memories where he was happy. This seems to be a coping mechanism for him, he often retreats to these memories in moments where he is feeling afraid or is experiencing pain. In the very beginning of the novel, Bromden is hiding in the mop closet to avoid getting his face shaved by the black boys, something he is very afraid of. He describes his fear and then thinks, “I try to think back and remember things about the village and the big Columbia River, think about ah one time Papa and I were hunting birds… like always when I try to place my thoughts in the past and hide there, the fear close at hand seeps in through the memory.” (6) He then goes further into this memory of hunting with his father and their dog, before he is caught. Readers can see how his fear coincides with these memories coming up, how he “hides” within the comfort of them. This becomes a pattern throughout the novel, even when he gets his final electroshock treatment, he once again thinks of his childhood in the village, of the people he was once surrounded with. While reading, I found it difficult to relate myself to this book, but this was a point I was able to connect with my own experiences. Escapism is definitely a bad habit of mine, whether it is procrastinating doing my homework or avoiding processing my emotions. Something I have noticed is I spent a lot of my day trying to evade silence, as silence invites my own thoughts. I find it more comforting to drown them out with a movie or music. Like Bromden, I do not want to feel those deep emotions, like fear or sadness, so it is easier to just escape and avoid them.

Something Bromden learns by the end, and something I am currently working on understanding, is that those deep emotions are a necessary part of life. You have to have hard moments to enjoy the good ones. By the end of the novel, his memories are still where he goes after his final electroshock treatment, but he is also able to break free from what was holding him at the Ward. That is why he can finally escape. He wakes up from the treatment and thinks, “it’s fogging a little, but I won’t slip off and hide in it. No… never again…” (248) He rubs his eyes and clears his head. He gets up, walks to the window and realizes, I “knew this time I had them beat.” (249) This symbolizes the turning point for Bromden, where he realized he couldn’t let fear control his life anymore. He finally forced himself out of the fog, which had been another source of escape for him throughout the book. He realized he didn’t need the fog anymore and he could stand up for himself. This leads to his eventual escape from the Ward, the very thing that was controlling and confining him. Although I have been out of quarantine for over two years, I still find myself using movies and TV shows as a way to avoid my problems. Facing things head on is scary, but it’s exactly what is needed to overcome them. This idea is something I have known for a while, but have been lacking at putting into practice. Bromden’s bravery to escape his fear, the fog, and the Ward as a whole showed me that avoidance only leads to more harm done. It doesn’t mean the problems will simply vanish, it likely means they will grow bigger and more unmanageable.

Soon after Offred and the Commander’s affair begins, she asks him for hand lotion to use as a substitute for her typical moisturizer of butter. She and the other Handmaids must use butter to keep their skin from being dry, as lotion is banned by the Wives. “Dry? the Commander said, as if he’d never thought about that before.” (158) He then calls the substitution “very clever” and laughs to himself. When reading, I immediately related this to countless exchanges in my own life where men have been dismissive of my struggles. Men could never understand many of the problems women face because they will never experience them, which makes it difficult to explain how they make me feel. My own experience with this has consisted less of specific moments and more of a behavioral pattern I have noticed. Men in my life have no problem interrupting me or talking down to me in ways they would never do with other men. Our society sees women as objects, which makes it easy to discount our feelings. It is rare that I feel taken seriously by men. I have been shut down trying to talk about politics with family members, being told I don’t know what I’m talking about. Experiences like that one are common and, at some point, make me not want to speak at all.

Offred finishes her explanation by telling him, “Jesus Christ, you ought to know.” She then thinks, “My voice was angrier than I’d intended, but he didn’t even wince.” (159) Her initial frustration over his dismissal of her struggle is inflated because he is now also dismissing her anger. His reaction, or lack thereof, reveals how little respect he has for her, how little she matters to him. Because he already didn’t grasp her original request for lotion, her anger simply seems like an overreaction of a sensitive little girl. He cannot take her anger seriously. Throughout this scene, I could notice Offred getting angrier and angrier with each snide comment, growing closer to her breaking point. As the reader, I felt that same anger, especially having experienced similar interactions myself. Offred then snaps at the Commander, yelling at him, listing all the items that the Handmaids are forbidden from having. Women are often viewed as sensitive because we tend to blow up at small comments. In reality, it is because we are so fed up with the repeated behavior that we can’t take it anymore. Femininity is intertwined with sensitivity, and sensitivity is perceived as weakness. I often find myself holding onto my stress, only to let it out at one small mistake I make or small interaction I have with someone. I’m not truly that upset over one thing, I just was bottling up my anxiety until that point. With Offred, her inner thoughts reveal how she felt from the beginning, but over and over, she stayed silent, despite the Commander’s irritating ignorance. Only when she could not hold it in anymore, her anger spilled over and she snapped. Women are conditioned to be silent and meek, so it is common for anger or other emotions to build up until we can’t hold them in anymore.

This book serves as a metaphor for our society, so it’s easy to draw comparisons to my own life. This specific scene stuck out to me because it was such a small moment, but her reaction throughout really resonated with me. It sets something off in me, the same feeling I get when I notice this happening to me. The constant feeling of being patronized is something every woman experiences daily, but I think it’s something men might not even notice they are doing. Gilead is such a foreign concept to me, but moments like this allow me to relate to Offred experiences and connect with her.

This artwork represents the relationship between the Handmaids and the Commander in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Just like with a shepherd and his sheep, the Commander both controls and cares for the Handmaids. Like a shepherd used his sheep for their wool, the Commander uses the Handmaids for their ability to conceive. Shepherds must watch over their herd, like the Commander watches over his Household. Throughout the book, the Handmaid’s are controlled in everything they do, who they can talk to, where they go. Etc. They are simultaneously manipulated, through indoctrination and punishment. In chapter 13, the narrator even compares herself to a farm animal, saying, “I wait, washed, brushed, fed, like a prize pig.” (69) She and her fellow Handmaids are treated like animals, to serve a singular purpose. This idea is significant because Gilead relies so heavily on its power structure to function the way it does. The Handmaids are at the very bottom of the pyramid, while the Commander sits at the top. The Handmaids are powerless, like animals in a farm, and have no choice but to follow the commands they are given. The Handmaids are treated as less than human beings, as simply baby machines.

The book also contains a lot of Biblical references and imagery that I wanted to emphasize in my artwork. Sheep and shepherds are a common metaphor in the Bible, typically with God as the shepherd and his “children” as the sheep. Because Gilead is a very religious based society, I wanted to extend this metaphor through my artwork. I chose to have all the sheep looking at the Commander to reference the scene where the Household is listening to him read the Bible. At this moment, the narrator thinks, “we’re all watching him. It’s the one thing we can really do, and it is not for nothing: if he were to falter, fail, or die, what would become of us?” (88) This relates back to the sheep and shepherd metaphor because the Handmaids must rely on the Commander, he is their leader. I wanted my artwork to explore the line between control and care. The Handmaids must be devoted to their Commander, but not by choice, more because they see it as their duty. The Handmaid’s identities exist only as an extension of the Commander. The narrator asks “what would become of us?” because she cannot separate her existence from his. Even their names are linked to their respective Commander. The narrator’s name is “Offred” because her Commander’s name is Fred. Her identity can only be “of” him. Overall, I was very intrigued and unsettled by this relationship while reading, so I wanted to analyze it in my Lit Log.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eICtVrnpOsxwGdOWvtKF_kuGN4LsxIl9/view?usp=sharing

Mi familia es un poco complicada. Mis padres son divorciados, así que tengo dos padres biológicos y dos padrastros. Yo tengo dos hermanas, una menor, Vivan, y una mayor, Chloe. Del lado de mi mamá, yo tengo dos tías, un tío, y seis primeros primos. Del lado de mi papá, Yo tengo dos tías y tres primeros primos. Mi papá, madrastra, y perro, Rumi, viven en la casa de mi papá. Mi mamá, padrastro, hermana menor, y dos gatos, Maximus y Lola, viven en la casa de mi mamá. Mi mayor hermana y yo vivimos en ambas casas.

Mi papa tiene el pelo corto y liso. Él es castaño. Él tiene ojos oscuros y es de altura media. Él es cómico, responsable, un poco empollón, y atlético. Él no es antipático.

Mi hermana mayor es de altura mediana. Es pelirroja. Su pelo es ondulado y de longitud mediana. Ella tiene ojos azules. Ella es muy responsable y trabajadora. Ella no es ni vaga ni empollóna.

Yo tengo pelo de longitud mediana, liso y pelirroja. Yo tengo los ojos oscuros y yo soy algo bajita. Yo soy desordenada, timida, y cómica. Yo no soy atlética.

Mi hermana y yo tenemos pelo de longitud mediana pelirroja, aunque el mío es más claro y corto. Ella es más organizada y responsable que yo, mientras yo soy más creativa y artística. Las dos somos trabajadoras, casi en cosas diferentes. Ninguno de nosotras somos muy deportivas.

Video Link: https://www.wevideo.com/view/2080099445