preview

Ap English Literature Analysis

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document

Ali Shuger
Mrs. Heim
AP English Literature
15 December 2014
“Summer” Reading Essay: The Handmaid’s Tale and Sex Thomas C. Foster, in his novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, gives many examples of sex being shown symbolically in literature. He imparts in the reader an idea that sex is everywhere in a typical novel, and that many details in a work-- most details, even-- are representative of sex: “Tall buildings? Male sexuality. Rolling landscapes? Female sexuality. Stairs? Sexual intercourse. Falling down stairs? Oh my” (Foster 136). And, yes-- sex is truly everywhere in The Handmaid’s Tale. The importance of sex in the dystopian society known as “Gilead” is huge; sex is what the entire Gileadian regime is based around-- reproduction, more specifically. Symbols of fertility …show more content…

These flowers serve as a constant reminder of this fertility-- not just to the reader, but also to the handmaids, whose main purpose is to reproduce. They are everywhere in the setting: a “watercolor picture of blue irises” (14) in Offred’s room; a “fanlight of colored glass: flowers red and blue” (15) at the end of the hallway just outside that room; the bathroom, “papered in small blue flowers, forget-me-nots, with curtains to match” (74); on the dining room table, “white cloth, silver, flowers” (78); the “magic flower,” the “withered daffodil” (115) Offred steals from Serena’s Parlor; the “starry canopy of silver flowers” (233) adorning the Commander’s bed. The flowers serve as hidden, almost subconscious reminders of the handmaids’ sole purpose of fertility; they are usually mentioned offhandedly, as miniscule, unimportant, yet ever-present details. However, they are sometimes more directly noted and compared to ideas of fertility, as in the case of Serena Joy’s

Get Access