Free Handmaids Tale Essays: The Red Motif :: Handmaids Tale Essays

The Red Motif in The handmaids Tale In the dystopian novel The Handmaids Tale written by Marg bet Atwood, the recurrent appearance of the glossiness red draws an interesting yet perverse parallel between femininity and violence. The dominant alter of the novel, red is associated with all things female. However, red is also the color of race death and violence therefore be closely associated with women in this male-dominated ultraconservative government. We are first introduced to the color red when the narrator is describing how she gets spiffed up The red gloves are lying on the bed. Everything except the wings round my face is red the color blood, which defines us. Here, we are unsure if Atwood is referring to blood as menstrual and feminine, or as the result of disobedience and the violence which results. The women of Handmaid are cloaked in red as a proctor of their fertility. However, in the context of Gilead, red is not just menstrual blood or blood resulting from bi rth the red is a threat of death. Offred would subsequent say, I never looked good in red, Its not my color. Red tulips are also a recurrent image in The Handmaids Tale. Tulips, often seen as llonic symbols in many works, can be interpreted this way also. Tulips are women, and red tulips are women cloaked in red, red blood. On scallywag 12 Offred narrates The tulips are red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they have been neck and are beginning to heal there. If a deeper interpretation of this thought is warranted, I would think the place where the tulip meets the stem in the neck of the woman, and as the government came in and stripped them of all power they cut off their heads in a way by depriving them of money, reading materials, and any type of education. Tulips, uniform the cloaks, are symbols of violence against females in the perverse world of Gilead. A conspicuous use of red to relate women with violence can be seen on page 32 But on one bag theres blood, which has seeped by the white cloth, where the mouth must have been. It makes another mouth, a elfin red one. . . This smile of blood is what fixes the attention finally. The men who are abatement are meant to scare, as Atwood clearly states, yet meant to scare who?