Symbolism in The Handmaid's Tale

 The novel is full of symbolism, from the place where the plot takes place to the clothes worn by the characters. Atwood gives much attention to the symbolism in the novel as it gives more depth to the meaning of the story and at the same time it is the symbolism that makes the reader understand that this novel is a protest and a criticism of the patriarchal society. Margaret takes historical elements and visual symbolism such as symbols, logos, or colors for it. As the novel covers a great variety of symbolism, here we will mention some of them, the most relevant ones like the setting, Harvard, colors, etc

The setting: Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

The place where the events take place is not explicitly specified in the novel but the author puts at our disposal a number of clues that indicate that the center of power of Gilead is located in the current city of Cambridge. If we go back in history, cities like Cambridge, Boston, and Washington were Puritan settlements. These three cities were the commercial centers of their communities and were of great importance to them. The Puritans were considered the first societies that practiced religious extremism and intolerance in the New World, the Puritan New England of the 17th century. That is why Margaret chose this location since the new society of Gilead constituted the same intolerant ideology as the Puritans. 

The Harvard University as a symbol of oppression

Universities are known worldwide as centers of knowledge, symbols of freedom and truth. The novel features Harvard University, which has now become a prison and torture center for those who claim truth and seek knowledge. It is a great symbolic element that a center of learning and free thought has become an institution that commits mass executions and promotes oppression as a way of limiting people from having free-thinking and critical minds. 

Men hung in the walls of Harvard University

Red

 The color red has always been associated with passion and lust. In the novel, Margaret establishes this color as the theme of the story. It is a color that recurs on many occasions and is especially connected to the Handmaids. These women are the caste of society whose sole purpose is to procreate. They are forced to commit adultery with the married Commanders to provide children for themselves and their wives, something like a surrogate womb. They are dressed in red, a symbol of fertility, the blood of the menstrual cycle, and childbirth. Red also symbolizes sexual sin, an original ideology of the Puritan mind. In puritan society, only prostitutes were allowed to wear red. The hypocrisy is that in an extremist Christian society like Gilead where things like adultery are supposedly forbidden, they justify their acts with handmaids. They say that the bible justifies the role of birth maker that handmaids have, but hypocritically these women are forced to commit adultery with the commanders, married men, to carry out this role. 

The Eyes

The Eyes are the policemen of Gilead. Both their name and their insignia are symbolic. Their symbol is a winged eye. This can be interpreted as The Eyes of God. In Gilead's religious ideology God's eyes and the state are the same things. The eyes symbolize the eternal watchfulness of God, and therefore, the eternal state's vigilant mode. 

Color of Costumes 

In order for the government of Gilead to remove any individuality, its citizens may possess, they have created a color-coded dress code. Each caste has to wear the same color among its members, thus marking their status and role in society. Rulers and commanders wear black, their wives wear blue, daughters wear white, handmaids wear red, aunts wear khaki brown, housemaids wear green, and the rest of society wears gray. 

• The handmaids in the novel wear red clothes, and their role in society is to provide children for their Commanders and Wives. This red clothing is associated with the color of menstruation blood as mentioned before. Margaret chose the color red for many reasons; she says that her choice of this color was because it represented un-purity and shame in many instances of Western history. It was the color given by Canada to German prisoners after World War II. In Biblical history the devil is always represented in red, Mary Magdalene was painted in red clothing or as a red-head throughout history due to this idea that many have of her as a fallen woman for her past as a prostitute. 

• The daughters of the Commanders wear white as a symbol of purity and chastity. They wear it until they get married. The handmaids'  'wing' is also white and it covers their face in order to represent how they attempt to block their contact with the rest of the society. However the meaning of the white 'wings' that the handmaid's wear is different. While for some societies white means purity and innocence, other societies like those who follow Hinduism consider that white is the color of the unlucky, the color of pain and mourning. This is because widows wear white. The handmaid's white wings represent their unfortunate destiny. Another symbol on the wing that is worth mentioning is that their form resembles Phrygian caps that symbolized freedom in Europe, as well as the pileus hats in ancient Rome given to freed slaves or the bonnet rouge of the rebels in the French Revolution.

• Blue is the color that Wives wear, and it is a color that symbolizes their role as mothers and caretakers, however blue also symbolizes ice, and this represents the lack of fertility of these women. When Atwood wanted to create the color-coding for her characters, she was inspired in the Renaissance art in which red is always depicted as the color of sin and lust and as a contract, blue was the color in which the Virgin Mary is represented, a color that represents virtuousness. 

“Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass like pastel water has momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve,”-Margaret Atwood

Margaret mentioned the irises being cold and frozen and blue as a symbol of the lack of fertility that the Commander Wives suffer from in contrast to the vivid red color of the Handmaids.

• House-maids wear green which is a color associated not only with nature but also with cleanliness and health. The Guardians wear green as well, symbolizing their role to defend and protect the Commanders.

• The common men and women of the society of Gilead wear grey as a symbol of their lack of importance. They are seen as un-gendered, which means that they are un-woman and un-man. They are just creatures that live in a society with no role or meaning in life. 

Mirrors

In the novel, mirrors are represented as the source of individuality and identity because they show you who you really are, they symbolize the truth. However, the fact that the government forbids mirrors in the country can be interpreted in two different ways, one is that they are afraid people break them and use them as a weapon or the explicit meaning that they are afraid of everything that promotes individuality and gives the people a sense of uniqueness or wisdom. 

Flowers

In The Handmaid's Tale, flowers receive particular attention. They are the symbol of fertility, femininity, and attractiveness. Flowers are found in the parts of the plant where there are reproductive organs, and this is why wives wear flowers, to look more attractive and appear fertile. 

There are far many other symbols in the novel, however, these are the most representative and relevant for the understanding of the general meaning of the plot and the ideology that Atwood wants to express behind it. 

References

SparkNotes. “The Handmaid’s Tale: Symbols.” Accessed June 30, 2021. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/handmaid/symbols/.

Written by Manal Kasbi