Representation of Colors in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

In The Handmaid’s Tale, each individual wears a certain colored garb that is symbolic of their role in society. The wives of the Commanders wear blue, which is a royal color, symbolizing the high status of the wives. Blue is also seen as a cold color, which represents the attitudes of the Wives towards the Handmaids. The color blue is often associated with the Virgin Mary, symbolizing the Wives ultimate role as mothers – but ones who have not conceived themselves but rear the children anyway. The Handmaids’ red dresses are long, draping, and covering every inch of their bodies.

Gileadean women are divided into seven classes based on hierarchy and identified by the color of their clothing. However, “They are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can” (Atwood 24). The commanders’ wives wear blue. Their responsibilities are to bear children, and if they are not able to reproduce, they are to take on a handmaid and stay loyal to their husband. Aunts wear brown clothing, they work for Gilead, enforcing, teaching, and supervising the handmaids; urging them to accept their new way of life. The Marthas clothe themselves in green dresses and aprons. They are the household servants, in charge of the cooking and cleaning. Handmaids wear red, symbolizing their fertility. Their sole responsibility is to bear the Commanders’

From very early on in the book, the significance of gender roles is set out in order to allow the reader to comprehend the idea of the castes in this patriarchal society. The transition between the “time before” and what Offred describes as “now”, is essential in order to realize the changes that occurred. After the “Sons of Jacob” start the revolution, people’s rights are put in limbo as the constitution is suspended. Women’s rights become almost non-existent, and the division begins. Since her attempted escape, Offred is brought back into Gilead and do her duty as a fertile woman, and become a handmaid. She is very limited in what she can do, and in order to not be sent away to the

Cultural criticism is a broad technique that puts emphasis on the culture that contributed to the production of a work. This approach is an eclectic, interdisciplinary study that utilizes a wide range of topics to analyze literature. Cultural criticism considers a variety of perspectives and branches of knowledge to discover the compilation of beliefs and customs that characterize a group of people. For a cultural reading of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, a cultural critic would consider the historical background paired with theories such as Marxism and feminism to make assumptions about what culture engendered the creation of this novel. (104 words)

From the outset of 'The Handmaids Tale' the reader is placed in an unknown world, where the rights and freedom of women have been taken away. We follow the narrative journey of a handmaid, named Offred.

In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale she explores the concept of a not-so-distant future where toxic chemicals and abuses to the body have left many men and women alike sterile. The main character, Offred, gives the reader a first person account about her submissive life as a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. A republic that was formed after a coup against the U.S. government. She and her fellow handmaids are fertile women that the commanders of Gilead ‘enslave’ to ensure their power and to repopulate their ‘society’. While the laws that govern the people of Gilead seem outlandish and oppressive, they are merely

The Handmaid’s Tale is a story told in the voice of Offred, who is the character of the “handmaid”, which is described best by women who are being forced and used for reproduction because they can make babies. In the Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood uses symbolism, which is the use of symbols to represent ideas, to show the reader the handmaid’s role in society of Gilead. The handmaids were women who had broken the law of Gilead, and forced into having sex and reproducing for the higher class. They had no rights and were watched constantly so this created a very nervous atmosphere. This horrible way of living is most likely why Offred never fully made the reader aware of the horrible life she was forced to live because

To begin, the Republic of Gilead outfits women based on their function to strip them of their individuality. The process starts by colour coding women into easily identifiable class groups. This is seen when Offred makes her way to town, narrating the scene and drawing attention to the other women by saying, “There are other women with baskets, some in red, some in the dull green of the Marthas” (Atwood 27). Women in Gilead have been colour coded to be easily identifiable and known under their respective colours, completely erasing their identities. Furthermore, the colours they wear identify their sole purposes to society. When Offred first introduces Econowives she notes that “...the striped dresses, red and blue and green… Econowives, they're called. These women are not divided into functions. They have to do everything…” (Atwood 27). The Econowives are the wives or the poorer men, wearing the medley of all three colours to

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Offred recounts the story of her life and that of others in Gilead, but she does not do so alone. The symbolic meanings found in the dress code of the women, the names/titles of characters, the absence of the mirror, and the smell and hunger imagery aid her in telling of the repugnant conditions in the Republic of Gilead. The symbols speak with a voice of their own and in decibels louder than Offred can ever dare to use. They convey the social structure of Gileadean society and carry the theme of the individual's loss of identity.

Within history, societies have to try to find a balance between gender and class. Margaret Atwood writes about a country called Gilead: a society where women are broken down into classes while men control all the power. Throughout her dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood utilizes gender and class to alienate the protagonist, Offred, illustrating how women and their position within society are used as a political instrument to gain dominance.

The Handmaid’s Tale is about Offered as she shares her thoughts and experiences in a journal-like form and provides some advice. Offred is a lower class female who has been taken from her husband and daughter at 5 years old to be a handmaid for the red commander at the red center. The point of this center is to reproduce with the Commander

In Margaret Atwood 's book, The Handmaid 's Tale, the women in the book often find themselves at the mercy of men and being used for the purpose of fulfilling man 's needs. They are more seen as property, than as humans themselves. The women are systemically ranked for amount of use in the household and women who can give birth are often high ranked, but not given much freedom. Over they do everything and are allowed nothing. The woman are not allowed to read, have their own money, or to normal jobs outside of being maids or cooks. The woman are often ranked in terms of colors with wives wearing blue, handmaids wear red, Maratha’s wearing green and Ecowives wearing stripes. The women are often seen as commodities and only relevant to the needs of man.

Imagery, particularly when describing beautiful colors before Gilead and contrasting them with the dull colors described in Gilead reveal how drastically life has changed. Offred mentions that in the past when she took her daughter to get ice cream, everything was “colored so delicately, pale orange, pale green, pale pink” and that her daughter, dressed in similar “ice cream pastels” would choose her treat “by the color” (Atwood 165). In life before Gilead, colors were vivid and cheerful, something to make objects more enjoyable to look at. People could wear whatever color they please, and colors had no additional meaning to them other than to show people had freedom to make their own decisions. However, in Gilead, color imagery shows the lack of decision and the rigid societal structure the government imposes. Each group has their own colors even in minor aspects of life, such as with umbrellas categorized as “black, for the Commander, blue, for the Commander’s Wife, and the one assigned to [Offred], which is red” (Atwood 9). Each color labels members of the society as part of a certain category and defines their roles without further consideration. Here, colors serve as a way to restrict peoples’ freedoms unlike when colors previously served as way to enhance freedom of choice and expression. In Gilead, “The women… are color coded to strip them of their individual identities and to mark their social status and relationships to men” restricting everyone’s freedom, even the

In The Handmaid’s Tale, red is a distinct color used to represents Handmaids. The color relates itself with the feeling of shame and is also a symbol for fertility as it is associated with the blood of the menstruation cycle. The clothes which Handmaids dress in are also red. This can be noted from a description Offred says: “Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us.” (Atwood, 1986, p.8). Furthermore, the accessories which Handmaids are given are also red:

of the veil is to conceal and hide women as well as to prevent women