https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-r-jE_QOFmL6P5GGWpseBseNNlqE2x8lzIaUVsjAJ4c/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14HaPEnaxf3PrdqhjwEmBZnpqJ40kpuWvnvrydWiW13o/edit?usp=sharing

Even though there is no music mentioned in the book Handmaid Tale, certain songs resonate with many characters, themes, and moments throughout the book. Even though these songs aren’t mentioned in the story, they fit in perfectly with the songs resonating with themes of freedom, relationships, love, and loss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV9dXEFP-Hk

To start it off, one of the first songs I think would fit into the book is the song ¨The World Isn’t Far ¨ by Randy Newman. This late 1990s song talks a lot about how the world is really unequal, and how people in power still continue to benefit while the people who look at them as leaders get left behind. I believe that theme matches perfectly with the society in ¨The Handmaid’s Tale¨ where women are forced out of their control into strict roles and have no freedom to their own, just like the song. Newman’s lyrics in the song were a bit sarcastic and ironic, especially for the time, which was talking about how some people reflect how systems of power are built to keep certain people on top. Gilead does the same thing, only it hides injustice behind religion and “morals.” As Offred says, “We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of the print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYB1rbL8EHo

Another song I believe connects to the novel is “You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore. Written in the 60´s, this song boldly declares a woman’s independence and refusal to be controlled by a man. In the story ¨The Handmaid’s Tale¨, women are not treated with care and freedom, with no rights over their bodies or their futures. Offering internal struggles and quiet acts of defiance mirror the song’s demand for autonomy. As she admits, ¨I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it’s shameful or immodest but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely.¨ This moment shows how Offred has been reduced to nothing more than her body, something she no longer feels ownership over. Gore’s song becomes an anthem of resistance in this context, capturing the longing for self-determination that runs throughout the novel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRtvqT_wMeY

“Runaway Train” by Soul Asylumn reflects Offred’s sense of helplessness early in the novel. The line says, “wrong way on a one-way track,” mirrors her life in Gilead, where every escape feels impossible. She longs for freedom, admitting, “I want to steal something, want to feel something, even if it’s only the sound of breaking” (89). The imagery of missing children in the song also connects to her grief over losing her daughter, stolen by the state. Throughout the chapters we have been reading, the main protagonist, Offred, circles back and reminisces to memories of her child, describing her as both painfully close and impossibly out of reach. Like the train in the song, her life has gone off course, her family ripped away, her choices gone. The haunting mood of Soul Asylum’s track captures the despair of being stuck in motion but never moving toward freedom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfpgpf6QVnI

This heavy metal song ¨ Symphony of Destruction ¨ by Megadeth, is a good example of how Gilead manipulates his people. The lyrics describe leaders pulling strings while citizens act “like puppets.” This parallels the Commanders, as Offred notices how easily power can twist human behavior: “Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it” (56). Just like the song’s warning, Gilead reshaped society step by step until people were trapped without realizing it. The Aunts orchestrate obedience with chants and violence, creating a system where cruelty feels normal. Gilead disguises destruction as stability, conducting society like a “symphony,” where women are reduced to instruments with no voices of their own. Megadeth’s intensity reflects the hidden violence beneath the calm rituals, reminding us that order can be its own kind of chaos when power goes unchecked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Khe7DInxo

Phoebe Bridgers’s quiet, melancholic song ” Scott Street¨ fits Offred’s reflective moments. The lyrics about memory and emptiness echo her flashbacks to life with Luke and her daughter. Offred recalls: “We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of the print. It gave us more freedom” (57). Like the narrator, she looks back on ordinary moments with bittersweet longing. Even something as simple as walking on a city street or chatting with a friend now feels like another lifetime. Bridger’s kind of quiet or muted voice mirrors Offred’s tone as she remembers laughter, intimacy, and freedom that are gone. The sadness of the song contrasts with her present silence, telling us that memory itself becomes a kind of act for survival. Her longing is not only grief, it’s a quiet rebellion against forgetting.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mkjPQdH83hNWVf_mQ58HaRbhXR9bVVHm-CsPXAdYDlY/edit?usp=sharing

Take Me to Church - Hozier Obviously, the topic of religion is a substantial motif in The Handmaid’s Tale, i.e., the passage from the book of Genesis, the common phrases spoken by the handmaids, the Bible reading during the ceremony, etc. This track highlights the irony of twisted Christian faith, how oftentimes instead of forgiving others, we are prone to resort to hate and violence even though we know better. I think the scene that best captures this is in chapter eight, when the priest is hanged for breaking the rules.

Nude - Radiohead There are countless things that are out of our control–how should we respond to such a terrifying thought? Is it even worth the attempt to take matters into our own hands? Although many events throughout Offred’s life are permeated by the themes of this song, none quite evoke equivalent raw emotion as the recurring dream where her daughter is taken from her. I think the most haunting aspect of this scene is the sheer helplessness of the situation, and the fact that there is not a moment of hope where you might think that the two of them will succeed in their escape. Margaret Atwood presents obstacle after obstacle in this dream: Offred’s daughter slowing the two of them down, the cold water that they’ll have to eventually cross, the bullets whizzing past them, but never are we given a reason to believe that this story might end well. It’s a downhill slope from where it began. It’s also worth mentioning how gorgeous this track is. Not to suggest that this part of the book is particularly pleasing, but the sequence is dreamlike and separate from reality, “I feel calm and floating, as if I’m no longer in my body; close to my eyes there’s a leaf, red, turned early, I can see every bright vein. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”(75) So it pairs well with a listening experience that has such a heavy emphasis on abstraction.

Paranoid Android - Radiohead “The woman sitting in front of me was Serena Joy. Or had been, once. So it was worse than I thought.” (16) I’m not sure why, but I associate this song with big revelations, like a shocking discovery of information that you wish you’d never known. I find it to be very haunting and foreboding. Years ago, a very close friend of my parents was arrested and sent to prison for a serious crime. I’m not sad that he’s no longer close with my family, it was just an eye-opening period for me, but what bothered me most at the time was coming to the realization of how oblivious I’d been to who he actually was. That’s how this song makes me feel, and I imagine Offred was experiencing the same when she met Serena Joy.

How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead The requirements of the handmaids involve stripping themselves of all things that make them human, because they are not counted as human beings anymore, there’s no practical reason that they should be treated as such. They have no friends or family, no one to be authentic with, and nothing to do when they have nothing to do. And the pure fact that the handmaids are crucial to their society is not sufficient to give them a feeling of purpose, “Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?”(7) The title ‘How To Disappear Completely’, admittedly, is a bit on the nose, but the contents of the song provide a great deal of depth to what the name might imply. Like Nude, it’s a track with few lyrics, however I find it to be more tragic than Nude and even more beautiful. How to Disappear Completely deals with shame, it’s about the desire to possess the ability to vanish from places where you can’t find comfort. This shame is reflected in the way the sound is designed, it’s almost as if the music is trying to leave but it hasn’t quite found a way out yet. And this is what I believe the handmaids like Offred are dealing with all the time, not solely the fact that society has essentially made them invisible, but a feeling that their lives would be easier if they were not seen or acknowledged by anyone at all.

All Falls Down - Kanye West “But we can do it, a little at a time, a quick move of the head, up and down, to the side and back. We have learned to see the world in gasps.” (30) It’s easy to forget how good we have it, that is, until we no longer have it. In chapter ten, Offred tangentially mentions what music is like in her life, but the ways she experiences it is rather pathetic; “Sometimes Rita will hum, while kneading or peeling: a wordless humming, tuneless, unfathomable. And sometimes from the front sitting room there will be the thin sound of Serena’s voice, from a disc made long ago and played now with the volume low, so she won’t be caught listening as she sits there knitting.” (55) Desperation for something means that its value is increased no matter how abundant. But some people have the ability to do the best with what they’ve got, and that’s enough for them.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NQI_8IhHbl6gCZJ_h1jVuoAuOF_-s1uUogXCDELjhF4/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1STluIA_NiS0f82qxYLMbxLMaucHw3ScorKrSbNWGQ0M/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mkjPQdH83hNWVf_mQ58HaRbhXR9bVVHm-CsPXAdYDlY/edit?usp=sharing

The Night We Met, Lord Huron—

Link: https://youtu.be/KtlgYxa6BMU?si=BP2EAo43qJzbi13Y

Lord Huron’s song The Night We Met is about being haunted by the memories of a lost love and yearning to return to the moment (“the night”) before everything fell apart. Similarly, Offred is also haunted by her life before the regime, specifically the whereabouts and wellbeing of Luke and her daughter. The song lyric “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you” mirrors Offred’s situation: “I pray that the hole [through Luke] or two or three, there was more than one shot, that they were close together, I pray that at least one hole is neatly…” (104). As mentioned during class discussions, all the possibilities about Luke seem to be making her paranoid, and thus, tormenting her. Rather than simply wondering about where Luke is, she wonders about the characteristics of his supposed death. This moment represents both grief and the way this world turns memories into torture: every mention of Luke is paired with longing or hypothetical harm, not fond memories. She no longer remembers Luke as a person vividly, but rather his potential death is grotesque in detail. While her memory of Luke can also be interpreted as hope, the absence of the love she felt with Luke also seems to be affecting her mental state. The song’s slow tempo and instrumentals creates nostalgia, which is a representation of her endless thoughts that don’t appear to have a resolution. Just as how in the song the singer is stuck and haunted by their memories, Offred is a character who is shackled by her memories.

Meditation, Walter Wanderlay—

Link: https://youtu.be/um1F_afN3lQ?si=o_T8aGpcxDO_jfjk

This song is one that is commonly known as “elevator music” or is associated with waiting. In other words, the mundane. While there is an upbeat in the music, there is no variation in the volume (crescendos/diminuendos) or the tempo (ritardando), making it feel like the song is being blurred together. This is parallel to the current world of Gilead. Even though there is newfound “safety and protection” for the women, they lack freedom to express themselves: “I think about laundromats. What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself. I think about having such control. Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us…In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from” (24). This “freedom from” is flat and stripped of variation; women are told they are safer, but they no longer have the freedom to choose how to live. There is also lots of free time in this world for the Handmaids: “There’s time to spare. This is one of the things I wasn’t prepared for — the amount of unfilled time, the long parentheses of nothing. Time as white sound” (69). Because the Handsmaids’ only purpose in this world is to give birth to children, the rest of their time is spent in idleness. They are in an endless state of purgatory, just as when one is waiting for the elevator to reach their designated floor.

Stitches, Shawn Mendes—

Link: https://youtu.be/UYCg6NBiXMI?si=wFXvkIpfxu8lxPu0

“Now I need someone to breathe me back to life.” This song is about a longing for connection after the breakup of an abusive relationship. While that is different from Offred’s situation, as she did not literally break up with Luke, she was separated from him. She longs for a connection and this is apparent in her secret interaction with Nick in the kitchen: “It’s so good, to be touched by someone, to be felt so greedily, to feel so greedy. Luke, you’d know, you’d understand. It’s you here, in another body” (99). The natural psychological response when humans lose something is to replace it because we hate change or disruptions in normalcy. Offred’s character is a reflection of this psychological phenomenon: in her mind, Nick is the replacement for Luke. She is devoid of the love she felt and received from Luke, prompting her to almost make risky decisions to replace what she once had. The contrast between the upbeat tempo and the song’s content also mirrors how this longing caused thoughts of rebellion and survival to blur for Offred as she almost agreed to give in to Nick.

Live to Tell, Madonna—

Link: https://youtu.be/lWA2Lt4Se40?si=kIWkyd7ok6jRLrVr

This song is about the weight of secrets and the difference between knowing and not knowing: “Hope I live to tell the secret I have learned till then it will burn inside of me.” This is illustrated in Offred’s interactions with the Commander: “We open his study door, just a crack, and listen for noises in the hall. This is like being on a date. This is like sneaking into the dorm after hours. This is conspiracy” (139). The two are unable to be seen by Serena Joy, but also the others in the house. There is this air of secrecy akin with the lyrics of Live to Tell. Offred also has no autonomy over whether or not these “secret things” happen to her: they dictate her survival. On one hand, not obeying the Commander, the person with the most power, could end up in her punishment. But on the other hand, if she gets caught keeping this secret, she could also get into more trouble, as there are still the unknown spies in the story.

Welcome to the Machine, Pink Floyd—

Link: https://youtu.be/HzhyLxkbKdc?si=0HXxkwYRSQPp-PGA

This song criticizes the music industry and how it’s linked to a powerful, manipulative, and unjust system. In other words, it’s about highlighting how artists are treated no more than cogs in a machine, similar to how the Handsmaids are treated in The Handmaid’s Tale. In Gilead, women are no more than mere tools to make babies. If they were to have complications during birth, it would not matter as long as the baby was delivered. This is evident in the fact that there are no doctors present during birth and how they lack ultrasound technology because they do not care about the baby or the mother’s condition. This is seen in the case of Janine: “She’ll be allowed to nurse the baby, for a few months, they believe in mother’s milk. After that she’ll be transformed, to see if she can do it again, with someone else who needs a turn” (127). Even after a successful birth, there are already plans of sending her to a different home to repeat this seemingly endless cycle. She is also unable to stay with her child except for a few months. There is no consideration of the emotions of these women; they are “wombs with two legs” and nothing more than that.