¨Love yourz¨ The first song Love Yourz, is about appreciating what you have, even when times are tough. Offred often thinks about her life before Gilead, which was full of love and freedom. She remembers being with her husband, Luke, and the happy moments they shared. J Cole’s song reminds us to value our shared lives. J Cole song reminds us to value our lives and relationships, which connects to Offred long past in the book Offred says “I remember the smell of his skin the way he would hold me¨. This shows how much she misses the love she once had. The message of ove Yourz” connects to Offreds memories and highlights her desire tohold onto the love that has been taken from her The second song “Fire” talks about the destrutive nature of oppressive system and the strong desire for freedom. In Gilead, women are controlled and treated like property. Offred and other women face strict rules that take away their freedom. Offred expresses her feelings of being invisible when she says, ¨We were the people who were not in the papers.”This quote shows her desire to resist the system that tries to erase her identity. The themes of resistance and strengths in ¨Fire¨ reflect Offred’s struggle to find her voice and fight against the regime ¨ 4 Your Eyez Only” tells a story about legacy and how one’s life affects future generations. Offred’s story is not just about her survival, it’s also about her hopes for her daughter, who was forced to leave behind. The sng focuses on sharing wisdom and experiences, which connect to Offred’s wish to ensure her daughter knows the truth about their past. In the novel Offred often thinks, Ï want to be able to tell her what happened to me.” This line reveals her deep desire to share her story and the lessons she has learned. The song´s focus on legacy resonates with Offred’s hope that her daughter will understand the struggles of Women in Gilead. The fourth song, “Middle Child talks about the struggle for recognition and the desire to have a place in a world that often ignores people. In Gilead, women like Offred are treated as if they don’t matter and must compete against each other to survive. This feeling of being overlooked is central to Offred’s experience. Offred describes her feelings of being unimportant when she says I am not allowed to read. I am not allowed to write¨. This highlights her lack of power in a society that does not value women. The themes of fighting for one´s place and voice in “Middle Child” connect to Offred’s struggle against the silence imposed on her by Gilead. Finally, “Neighbors” explores themes of community and the difficulties in relationships. In the relationship between women is complicated by jealousy and fear. Offred’s relationship with Sersna Jot, the wife of the Commander shows this complexity. OFfred notes, he is not my friend. I am not her friend.¨ This line shows the tension and distance between them. The song exploration of how societ can hurt relationships connect with Offreds struggles can hurt relationships connect with Offreds struggle to connect with others in a divided world. In conclusion, J Cole’s music helps us explore the themes and experiences in the book. Each song connects to Offred’s journey, her memories, and her fight against oppression. The emotional power of J Cole’s lyrics deepens our understanding of Offred’s character and the world of Gilead. Through songs like ¨Love Yourz,” Fire¨ ¨4 Your Eyez Only¨ Middle Child, ¨ and ¨Neighbors we see how music can reflect and enhance our understanding of literature. These connections remind us of the importance of l for frove, the fight for freedom, the values of sharing stories, the struggle for recognition, and the complexities of relationships. J Cole’s songs help us appreciate the depth of Offred’s story and the strength in the face of oppression

J. Cole - MIDDLE CHILD (Official Audio) Love Yourz J. Cole - 4 Your Eyes Only [Explicit] J. Cole - Neighbors J. Cole – Fire Squad (Official Music Video)

The Wall is something that was introduced to readers in chapter 6. Ofred says it is hundreds of years old, made of bricks, with barbed wire and metal posts surrounding it. The Wall is filled with 6 bodies, and the handmaids are forced to look at them. Ofred notes that the bodies are hung with white bags over their heads, which she states is the worst thing that could be over their heads. My artwork helps readers visualize just that. It shows two handmaids in their red dresses and white hats looking at three bodies on the wall. In the drawing, Ofred looks as if she is walking away while the other handmaid beside her has stopped. I chose to do this because it helps present the idea that some handmaids have already become desensitized to The Wall, while others are still adjusting. In the drawing, you will also see a quote next to Ofred and below the bodies that says “We lived as usual by ignoring,” What makes this scene so significant is how true this can be in today’s society. When scrolling on social media, watching the news, or hearing news from others, it is easy to have little to no empathy for things we see. While I think this can be true for any citizen in any country, I specifically think this idea is very prominent when it comes to Americans and how we live. When reading this part, I initially thought it was very dehumanizing; however, I realized that this is something that citizens do in everyday society. As the two handmaids are looking at The Wall, Aunt Lydia says, “This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after time it will. It will become ordinary,” (pg 11). Many things today seem out of the ordinary, but over tim,e we become accustomed to them just as Aunt Lydia suggests in the book. However, even though this idea may be true, I question how much we as a society have normalized without realizing it. Crime, death, and losses are all things in American society that have become overlooked if they have happened to the average citizen. This is due to the fact that these things are far too common to see. Tragedies are something that we see every day, causing this to be the unfortunate norm for American citizens. As we see these things almost every day, we fail to have any genuine emotions towards it until it happens to us personally. This goes along with Aunt Lydia’s quote, as we continue to hear about different losses, the more they become not so different but somewhat average. As Ofred and the other handmaids continue to encounter The Wall, the easier it will become for them to be less sensitive towards it. The constant repetition of seeing things such as The Wall does nothing but force the handmaids to become numb to anything surrounding death and or loss.

This story discusses how women are being exploited as a means to an end by men. The women are trying to get close to them and hoping that they can bear a child. The question for this story is, how does religion influence people & spark fear? The story that we are looking into is called “The Handmaid’s Tale.” This story is all about men being more powerful than women, and every woman that are under their followership is trying to get close to them, and tries to have a child with one of them. This story also shows that there is a ¼ chance of having a healthy child being born, while the other ¾ chance is of children being born unhealthy and may die after being born.

In "The Handmaid's Tale,” there are a lot of women who are under a religion where they are being used to give birth to one of the commanders. There are different rankings for women, and they are “The Aunts,” and they are the elderly ladies who have an education and give the Handmaid’s some lessons about how to be a Handmaid. “The Marthas” are just cleaners who are also invisible to other people. “The Handmaid’s” are servants to the commanders and bear their children. “The Unwomen” are scared to become a Handmaid because they don’t want to become part of that religion where they have to bear someone's children, and want to escape the place. The men have their own rankings, and they are “The Guards,” who are the protectors of the Handmaid’s, making sure that nothing happens to them. “The Angels” run the society, meaning they are in charge of guarding the front lines, and they are also trusted with upholding. “The Commanders” are basically running the whole thing. “The Eyes” are mysterious because they are always undercover, seeing if the Handmaid’s were spreading information with them.

In one of the texts, Offred was in a ceremony, and the commanders told them to pray. This is what the text said, “I pray silently: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. I don’t know what it means, but it sounds right, and it will have to do, because I don’t know what else I can say to God.” (Pg90) Offred didn’t know the meaning of what it meant, and the praying word was in Latin so they never know what it meant. I am also in confusion with my religion because I’m not really interested in my religion, but my mom does this every day, and she would always chant something, and I never fully understand what it even means at all. My family's religion is all about Buddhism, and only my mom and my aunt are the only ones who do this every morning. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1og4OydqIsJkcgPtNAIXN2YG19y2CbMD7K9SRdNzUqK4/edit?usp=sharing

                     A Woman’s Choice

The world is filled with unfair treatment between men and women. It’s shown in different ways. and some more than others. The Handmaid’s Tale is a book created by Margaret Atwood, and it does an excellent job of showing a dystopian society where there is oppression only for women. Throughout the book, our main character, Offred, has to suffer the consequences of a society failing her. A cruel world where women are allowed to be used and tossed around with no punishment. Many sections in this book acknowledge this issue, where Offred feels uncomfortable because a man is treating her differently. I decided to go with the moment when Offred is having her first doctor’s check-up. When randomly, the doctor asks her if she would like to get impregnated by him with no care in the world. This happens during chapter twelve, specifically these sentences, “It’s genuine, genuine sympathy; and yet he’s enjoying this, sympathy and all. His eyes are moist with compassion, his hand is moving on me, nervously and with impatience.”-Pg.61. This section tells a lot about the system operating in The Handmaid’s Tale and raises the question, How does a hierarchy that favors men affect the autonomy of a woman to make her own decisions?

When I myself was reading this section, with Offred at the doctor’s appointment, I was disgusted. I showed a clear moment that I was uncomfortable with the situation. Which is why I wanted to tackle this section, as it painfully shows an insight into true events that happen in the real world. In the section I selected, Offred can tell that the doctor’s actions aren’t based on sympathy or wanting to help; it’s pure lust. As the doctor is a man, he automatically has a higher ranking than Offred. He has the power over Offered, and he makes sure to use this hierarchy to his advantage. As the doctor asks Offred if she would like one of his sperm to have a higher chance of her being pregnant. This automatically creates a choice for Offred; the reader knows by now that women in this system aren’t necessarily supposed to make decisions like this. It creates a complicated position for Offred, as not being pregnant means death for women in this world. But in the section, it’s noticeable that the doctor is doing this for his own pleasure; it’s the word choice Atwood uses that reveals this, repeating the word sympathy to cover the doctor’s real intentions. Offred can tell that the doctor is enjoying his time towering over her, knowing that she can’t take on a hard decision like this. As this section alone can give away how men in this oppressed world affect a woman’s choice, there are many other quotes in The Handmaid’s Tale that can relate to this section.

The commander has one of the highest roles when it comes to the setup hierarchy in this book. They are men who get to roam around more freely than women. In the recent chapters the class has read, I noticed how the commander is soft around Offred. At some point, at the end of chapter twenty-three, he gives a choice to Offred, asking her, Will you kiss me? This is how it went: “Thank you,” he says. “For the game.” Then he says, “I want you to kiss me.” Fast forward to Offred’s response, “I think about how I could approach the Commander, to kiss him, here alone, and take off his jacket, as if to allow or invite something further, some approach to true love, and put my arms around him and slip the lever out from the sleeve and drive the sharp end into him suddenly, between his ribs.”-Pg.139/140. When I read this quote, I automatically thought back to the doctor scene because the theme of this choice is the opposite of the doctor’s section. But in the end, it’s still a man in the story with a bigger role in the hierarchy, affecting a woman’s options. The reason I thought this was because whatever choice Offred decided on, which she ended up kissing the Commander, it could lead to life or death. The Commander now holds a secret that he can spread if he wants to, most likely making Offred an unwoman. This can also go back to the doctor; he could also get Offred in trouble for bestowing a choice upon her. In the real world, women have more freedom and make their own choices. But in The Handmaid’s Tale, it plays out differently.

Offred is met with hard choices she has to make, or with the thought of wanting to make a choice. This moment with the doctor shows a world with sexism and misogyny. It reveals the true process of how this hierarchical world works and how women don’t have the freedom to naturally choose. As I will continue reading this book, I want to connect this deep critical question to every chapter I read. As it will allow me to truly understand Offred and her characteristics. While also showing me why the men have the power over her. Hopefully, in the future, Offred gets to be free.

When coming up with this artwork, I didn’t really know what specific scene to include. There are so many powerful and inspirational scenes within The Handmaid’s Tale, none of which was what I was looking for. I wanted something that more so called me as I was drawing each line to make out the picture. That’s when I finally came up with the artwork that you see. I realized that I want to show a picture that contrasts what is seen on the outside of a handmaid versus what they are actually thinking while going through everything. I know you might be asking, well, what does any of it mean? So starting with the pregnant crying handmaid. I would say that this handmaid is Janine and represents how she is pregnant but is sad that she knows that she has to eventually give up her baby once she gives birth, and is not okay with the circumstances. In some way, even though this is specifically Janine, this could also be a representation for all the handmaids, showing the harsh things that they have to go through and live with.
In the artwork, the handmaid is saying, “We’ve been sent good weather.” Even though they are saying this, a person could see the storm clouds that I made, so why is she saying that we have been sent good weather if there isn’t any? Well, this goes into the metaphor aspect of my art because it’s supposed to represent how they have to hide and censor their own feelings just to survive in this world. It shows how the handmaids are forced to put on this smile that is truly not there just to make the leaders of their society happy and make them move on. It’s just not fair that these women are forced to be humiliated and just used as birthing objects for other people, and not by choice. So it just shows that even though they might seem happy on the outside, there’s really a storm going on in their head. Other than the storm clouds, there are other clouds with things in them. One you could see, it seems like it became a popular saying in the book, “Nolite te bastardes caborundorum.” This saying means “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” I added this because I added a scene of June being in her bedroom, touching the carving of this saying on the floor in her closet. I just thought that this was important because it seems like the only thing that helps her stay sane. It helps her want to keep fighting or try to find a solution to all the madness. Even though at the time she didn’t know what it meant, she just knew it was a message left by someone who was in the same position as her. She felt like her struggles were relatable at that point. Lastly, the last quote I pulled was “when we think of the past, it’s the beautiful things we pick out…” I chose to add this because if you can see under it, there are black figures of what used to be her family. I just think it’s a way to show how the lie they knew of before was all behind them before, and is just a dream for them now. It’s no longer their usual or reality. This brings me into my whole reasoning of doing this, which was to just overall show their struggle. Show what they think in this very moment of living. Just letting viewers realize how deep this book actually could go.

Link to Doc

While reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, there was this one scene that I found particularly unsettling and intriguing where the mandatory ritual ceremony with the Commander and the Handmaid, Offred, conducts sexual intercourse. On surface level, it felt like what the author was trying to show was that the Commander was justified by the sacred duty to impregnate Offred for the reproduction of the population of Gilead which is completely understandable especially when they’re struggling in birthrate. However, delving deeper into this scene, it does symbolize how women are often exploited through the aspects of power, obedience, and control. Through this scene, Atwood uses Offred’s perspective to show the objectification of women’s bodies and the uneasiness when they’re being sexually controlled. As I read, I was extremely disturbed by the descriptive imagery that Atwood has used on the ritual between Offred and the Commander. The Ceremony is framed as an event justified by the sacredness of the Bible, but it felt like it was forced. The scene where Offred describes how the Wife and Offred are positioned, “My arms are raised, she holds my hands, each of mine in each of hers.” mimics a spiritual prayer as if it’s being done under the divines. But yet I sensed that it wasn’t spiritual, but done as an act of duty. The ritual transformed sexual intercourse as a sign of obedience, completely removing the aspects of intimacy and showed women’s role as an act of duty. Reading this, I was struck by how easily rituals can be exploited by the justification of faith and scripture, promising comfort and community, became a weapon of forced violence. My reaction reading this scene was uneasy since both roles, the Commander, and the women, had such a difference in power to the point where women could be exploited and trapped easily. For me, the Ceremony became an example on how a hierarchy of different roles with different powers, use religion as a safety net for domination and exploitation of others. What disturbed me further was the way the Ceremony reduces the women’s bodies to functional parts. In the scene where Offred observes how Serena Joy, the Wife, “is lying on her back fully clothed, except for the healthy white cotton underdrawers. Her legs are apart, she is holding my hands.” This position that Offred held emphasizes how her body is literally split off from herself. Because Offred’s upper half of her body is held by Serena Joy and the lower rest is used by the Commander, Offred is seen as a vessel rather than a human being. While the Ceremony has continued with the intercourse between the Commander and Offred, Offred kept note of the Commander’s behavior about how he treated the ritual as something to be required than desired, showing a lack of intimacy, shown form the quote, “He is preoccupied, like a man humming to himself in the shower.” I find that this scene normalized how objectification had become in Gilead when it comes to reproductive control. It wiped out women’s roles of mothers, wives, and lovers, and replaced them with wombs to be exploited against. Atwood also utilized Offred’s narration with irony which created both distance and resistance between the Commander and Offred. This one quote during the Ceremony, “This is not recreation, even for the Commander, This is serious business.” had shown how Offred had reacted. Logically, I would’ve thought she’d react with horror or disgust, but instead, she kind of narrated a flat tone as if she’s mocking the ritual. From what I’ve understood, I felt like her irony became a survival tactic. She knew that she couldn’t stop the act, so she controls the way she frames it in her mind since that’s the only thing she could control. Intellectually, I found this as a coping mechanism and way to detach herself from the brutally awkward Ceremony to stop her from breaking. Personally if I were in Offred’s position, I would’ve reacted the same way: finding ways to resist without directly rebelling. Reflecting on the Ceremony, I realize that I’m sensitive and I tend to be mirroring the discomfortness that Offred had faced along with her own strategies of surviving emotionally. I feel like the author’s intention of including and writing this scene was not just to directly show two different-gendered people having sexual intercourse, but to show the minor problem in reality of how women are treated as reproductive machines rather than actual human beings and how people can easily cover this using religion.

When coming up with this artwork, I didn’t really know what specific scene to include. There are so many powerful and inspirational scenes within The Handmaid’s Tale, none of which was what I was looking for. I wanted something that more so called me as I was drawing each line to make out the picture. That’s when I finally came up with the artwork that you see. I realized that I want to show a picture that contrasts what is seen on the outside of a handmaid versus what they are actually thinking while going through everything. I know you might be asking, well, what does any of it mean? So starting with the pregnant crying handmaid. I would say that this handmaid is Janine and represents how she is pregnant but is sad that she knows that she has to eventually give up her baby once she gives birth, and is not okay with the circumstances. In some way, even though this is specifically Janine, this could also be a representation for all the handmaids, showing the harsh things that they have to go through and live with.
In the artwork, the handmaid is saying, “We’ve been sent good weather.” Even though they are saying this, a person could see the storm clouds that I made, so why is she saying that we have been sent good weather if there isn’t any? Well, this goes into the metaphor aspect of my art because it’s supposed to represent how they have to hide and censor their own feelings just to survive in this world. It shows how the handmaids are forced to put on this smile that is truly not there just to make the leaders of their society happy and make them move on. It’s just not fair that these women are forced to be humiliated and just used as birthing objects for other people, and not by choice. So it just shows that even though they might seem happy on the outside, there’s really a storm going on in their head. Other than the storm clouds, there are other clouds with things in them. One you could see, it seems like it became a popular saying in the book, “Nolite te bastardes caborundorum.” This saying means “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” I added this because I added a scene of June being in her bedroom, touching the carving of this saying on the floor in her closet. I just thought that this was important because it seems like the only thing that helps her stay sane. It helps her want to keep fighting or try to find a solution to all the madness. Even though at the time she didn’t know what it meant, she just knew it was a message left by someone who was in the same position as her. She felt like her struggles were relatable at that point. Lastly, the last quote I pulled was “when we think of the past, it’s the beautiful things we pick out…” I chose to add this because if you can see under it, there are black figures of what used to be her family. I just think it’s a way to show how the lie they knew of before was all behind them before, and is just a dream for them now. It’s no longer their usual or reality. This brings me into my whole reasoning of doing this, which was to just overall show their struggle. Show what they think in this very moment of living. Just letting viewers realize how deep this book actually could go.

The first song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song Grieving by Leith Ross. Grieving is, unsurprisingly, a song about grief. More specifically about Ross grieving her past and her female ancestors, seen by the lyrics, “I never will stop grieving, Who we are when we are young, For my grandmother, her children, And who I never will become”. These lyrics really strike me, as they encapsulate everything I see in Offred’s emotions and grief. Similar to Ross, Offred misses her mother and often reflects on the life she could’ve lived but now seemingly may never get the chance to. All of this and more, make Grieving by Leith Ross the headlining song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist.

The second song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song More by Halsey. This is a song about longing for a kid, and more specifically about the yearning and feelings of loss after having a miscarriage. This song encapsulates for me some of the ways that Offred is feeling throughout the book, as she has gone through a similar experience, with her child being taken away from her rather than having a misscarriage. We see this in moments like when Offred is at the doctor, reminiscing on her past with her daughter, when she thinks to herself, “She fades, I can’t keep her here with me, she’s gone now. Maybe I do think of her as a ghost, the ghost of a dead girl, a little girl who died when she was five”.

The third song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song Witches by Alice Phoebe Lou. This song being about her pushes and pulls of dependence and independence throughout different parts of different relationships, reminds me of Offred and her Commander’s current relationship and power dynamics. Additionally, Lou’s symbolic use of witches in the song as representations of female empowerment and how men/societies often fear that kind of self respect and power in women is very powerful and makes me think of how Offred’s mom and her group of feminists was said to have acted by Offred when she said, “They must have poured gasoline, because the flames shot high, and then they began dumping the magazines, from boxes, not too many at a time. Some of them were chanting; onlookers gathered. Their faces were happy, ecstatic almost.” This act of burning derogatory feminine portrayals is reminiscent of witches being burned at the stake.

The fourth song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song Pretty Girl by Clairo. Pretty girl is about the singer, Clairo feeling like she’s changing herself too much for a relationship and trying too hard to please her partner, seen in the lyrics, “And I could be a pretty girl, I’ll lose myself in you”. Eventually, this relationship ends and she feels like she is better off. I get similar feelings to these when reading Offred and the Handmaid’s forced efforts to please the commander to stay in their position, because, while bad, it’s better off than they could be as unwomen. I imagine if the Handmaids are ever free, or the system ever changes they will feel similarly to how Clairo felt after the end of the aforementioned relationship.

The fifth and final song on my Handmaid’s Tale playlist is the song Money In The Grave by Drake and Rick Ross. This song is a 180 from the other songs on this playlist, and that’s for a reason. It’s so different because this song connects to how the commander is feeling and acting throughout the first couple dozen chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale. Lyrics like, “I got hoes that I’m keepin’ in the dark, I got my niggas ‘cross the street livin’ large”, make me think of how the commander is hiding a relationship with Offred and how he and the other men are the only people in the world who are, “livin’ large” and have power/wealth. Offred stating that, “The Commander is the head of the household. The house is what he holds. To have and to hold, till death do us part”, has a similar feeling to Drake saying, “I don’t wanna change ‘cause I’m good where I’m at”. They are both saying that the position of the man in power, The Commander/Drake, isn’t changing anytime soon. Overall, my playlist encapsulates the feeling and actions of a variety of characters in The Handmaid’s Tale, from the obvious, Offred, to the more obscure characters like The Commander and Offred’s mother.

Throughout history, the lack of autonomy women have over their own bodies has always been blamed on the lack of modesty in their lifestyles. Instead of placing blame onto the predator who assaults women, there is typically a response as to what the women could have done for the assault to have been avoided. Without accountability for the abuse women go through, women may start to believe the hateful rhetoric being forced upon them and start turning against one another. This idea is perpetuated in The Handmaid’s Tale by the women’s opposition to one another during “Testifying.” During this time, the Handmaids are expected to share past personal experiences with the rest of the group. When it was Janine’s turn to share, she told the story about how she was “…gang-raped at fourteen and had an abortion” (71). Instead of providing Janine with comfort and support as would be expected, the Handmaids instead told her it was “Her fault, her fault, her fault…” (72). This is representative of how society pits women against each other by showing how propaganda can persuade people to believe something that does not align with their ideals. The Handmaids’ chanting that Janine’s assault was her own fault was not a conclusion they came to on their own. Instead, they were being instructed to say this by the Aunts in Gilead until they started to believe what they were saying. In our society, this is seen in the rhetoric that women have to act a certain way for men not to prey upon them. If dressed in a way that is seen as “provocative,” a woman may be met with the question, “Well, what were you wearing?” This question has become normalized in conversations surrounding the sexual abuse of women and is used to deflect the blame of the abuser onto the innocent woman. This allows the idea that women need to dress modestly if they do not want their boundaries to be crossed to be sustained. This philosophy controls the way the Handmaids are allowed to dress. Each Handmaid has the same uniform: an outfit that is “…ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full. The white wings too are a prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also being seen” (8). Since Handmaids are not allowed to have sex, or even be in the same room with a man unsupervised, this implies that one of the main reasons that the Handmaids should not be seen by society is that it may be too tempting for others to want sexual relations with the Handmaids. The lack of control of the men in Gilead dictates what the Handmaids are allowed to wear, and teaches them that their bodies should be something that they are ashamed of; merely an object for others’ pleasure that needs to be hidden away. The notion that a woman’s body is shameful causes both the women of Gilead and our society to feel like their bodies are a taboo subject that should not be discussed. This hateful speech leads them to the conclusion that they deserve the violations inflicted on them. After being ridiculed the week before, Janine tells the group that “It was (her) own fault. (She) led them on. (She) deserved the pain” (72). Being jeered at in the weeks before converted Janine’s mindset from being a victim in a disgusting situation to believing she was the one responsible for her own suffering. This shows how systematic oppression against women not only silences them, but also convinces them they need to carry their trauma alone. In our society, this results in women not speaking out against their abusers due to the fear that their situation will not be believed. In a society where women and their experiences are easily disregarded to preserve the lives of abusers, women lose their voices. In The Handmaid’s Tale, this holds a literal meaning– the Handmaids are forbidden from communicating with one another. In our society, this means that a woman’s voice feels powerless. Women will be forced to suffer and endure the abuses at the hands of men until society makes an effort to change its patriarchal ways. Even though they are set in different realities, the oppression and degradation of women are evident in both The Handmaid’s Tale and our own society. While The Handmaid’s Tale may be an exaggeration of the abuse women go through in our world, the themes of abuse and patriarchy are too common and too normalized in both societies. The Handmaid’s Tale should serve as a warning for what our society may become if the silencing and shaming of women continues without repercussions.

The artwork depicts when offered and her partner were walking and were stopped by an interpreter from Japan. However, the Interpreter was not the only one there; he also brought a group of Travelers who asked whether they were happy in Gilead. Offred was left unsure of how to respond, but continued to say they were happy in Gilead. To start off, I designed my piece of artwork in this way to clearly represent how I imagined it to be in my head. I made the buildings in the back darker colors because of the Helpless/chilling vibe that Gilead gives off. The reason why I found this moment in the book to be interesting is because it shows how, when something is not really your problem, you have great ignorance towards it. Not feeling the full effect of someone else’s pain somehow makes people curious and have lack of empathy for those going through traumatic experiences. I feel like it’s some type of chemical imbalance in our brains not to have empathy for others in pain. This Moment In the book also makes me think of how the Dynamics in Gilead would play out in another country and what other rules would they have towards tourism. Would they let people ask questions, or would they keep people clueless about what is happening within their country. I do think that the person who controls the gilead wants people in other countries to perceive handmaids as some type of a live-action artifact that they can be curious with. in my mind this scene feels like a social experiment to see what the handmaids would do if they had people asking them questions about the gilead and whether they would stay loyal and not say anything like they were taught. Generally, they think tourists are just eyes that come to ask some questions so they can see how they respond, which I believe could be true, given how strict everything is around them, and they already don’t want people from that country to be involved in anything. I also wonder If The Interpreter was Japanese or American, because if he were to be American, how did he escape the rules bound to him from living in the States. Did he create some type of pathway of living in another country, which led to him being safe from all rules. This moment also makes me think of what roles can be bent to be beneficial for some people and also cause chaos for others.