In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood explores the idea of… Offred is a Handmaid whose sole purpose in the society of Gilead is to reproduce by having sex with a man known as the Commander. However, the Commander has a designated Wife known as Serena Joy, and the Wives of the Commanders cannot produce children due to infertility. These two women, existing both separately and together in a lifeless world with a declining birth rate, interact in subtle yet strained ways. In a particular scene from chapter 25, Offred observes Serena Joy aggressively tending to the flowers in her garden. She proceeds to describe the garden in great detail, bringing this entire scene to life through her use of dynamic imagery. Offred, mesmerized by the beauty
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Offred describes Serena Joy’s cutting of the flowers as a “convulsive jerk of the hands” and questions if this action was “some blitzkrieg, some kamikaze, committed on the swelling genitalia of the flowers” (153). Because flowers often represent fertility, the flowers, much like the Handmaids, are a reminder of the fertility that the Wives lack. Thus, Serena Joy targets this jealousy by viciously cutting out the flower’s fruiting body as a means to destroy this reminder of her infertility. This attack on the genitalia of the flowers can be seen as an attack on Offred, portraying Serena Joy’s jealousy in a subtle and silent manner. However, Offred also envies Serena Joy when she admits that “what [she] coveted was the shears” (153). Serena Joy contains this power that Offred can never have: the power of having value. Because Serena Joy is a Wife, she has at least some chance at love with the Commander whereas for Offred, real love and emotion are not a possibility as a Handmaid. Offred, like a flower, loses her value once she withers and becomes old; she is simply a womb, thrown out once she can no longer serve her purpose of reproduction. These two women, although envious of one another, are complementary; the Handmaid cannot exist without the Wife, and the Wife …show more content…
Offred falls victim to this barrier of silence, solidified by the jealousy between women, in her brainwashed preference of winter to spring out of need for “hardness, cold, rigidity” (154). Like many other Gileadean women, Offred lives in denial about her longing to experience love in a meaningful manner and succumbs to the world that emphasizes love without emotion. The women aid in causing their own destruction, unable to embrace their identity as sexual beings and accepting that they are simply a mechanism for procreation -- a “melon on a stem, this liquid ripeness” (154). Even though these women appear complacent, there is still some hope and power in truths whispered in the silence. This truth, these emotions between Offred and Serena Joy, surface without sound from the flowers of the garden. But beneath the earth, these women wrestle with their own jealousy as their destructive and rebellious nature clashes in the loud chaos, emerging together in silent
Offred describes Serena Joy’s cutting of the flowers as a “convulsive jerk of the hands” and questions if this action was “some blitzkrieg, some kamikaze, committed on the swelling genitalia of the flowers” (153). Because flowers often represent fertility, the flowers, much like the Handmaids, are a reminder of the fertility that the Wives lack. Thus, Serena Joy targets this jealousy by viciously cutting out the flower’s fruiting body as a means to destroy this reminder of her infertility. This attack on the genitalia of the flowers can be seen as an attack on Offred, portraying Serena Joy’s jealousy in a subtle and silent manner. However, Offred also envies Serena Joy when she admits that “what [she] coveted was the shears” (153). Serena Joy contains this power that Offred can never have: the power of having value. Because Serena Joy is a Wife, she has at least some chance at love with the Commander whereas for Offred, real love and emotion are not a possibility as a Handmaid. Offred, like a flower, loses her value once she withers and becomes old; she is simply a womb, thrown out once she can no longer serve her purpose of reproduction. These two women, although envious of one another, are complementary; the Handmaid cannot exist without the Wife, and the Wife …show more content…
Offred falls victim to this barrier of silence, solidified by the jealousy between women, in her brainwashed preference of winter to spring out of need for “hardness, cold, rigidity” (154). Like many other Gileadean women, Offred lives in denial about her longing to experience love in a meaningful manner and succumbs to the world that emphasizes love without emotion. The women aid in causing their own destruction, unable to embrace their identity as sexual beings and accepting that they are simply a mechanism for procreation -- a “melon on a stem, this liquid ripeness” (154). Even though these women appear complacent, there is still some hope and power in truths whispered in the silence. This truth, these emotions between Offred and Serena Joy, surface without sound from the flowers of the garden. But beneath the earth, these women wrestle with their own jealousy as their destructive and rebellious nature clashes in the loud chaos, emerging together in silent