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THT Motifs - Coggle Diagram
THT Motifs
Mothers and Children
reproduction in Gilead is a matter of state survival. A child is important as a statistic and those which do not measure up to the state's standard of perfection are removed as ‘shredders'
The Brith Day makes Offred recall her mother's account of Offred's own conception and birth: ‘You were a wanted child, all right,'
Offred remembers her mother and recalls their disagreements; Offred wanted ‘a life more ceremonious'. Yet, she ponders, ‘despite everything, we didn't do badly by one another.'
Some of the most moving and powerful language in the novel concerns Offred's passionate love and yearning for her daughter
As with Offred herself, we never know the child's name. Offred will suddenly think of her, in sharp memories
Her daughter seems changed and has moved on and away from her but Offred realises with horror that Serena Joy has ‘known all along ‘where her daughter is
The real, deep, passionate and all-consuming love of mother for daughter is very clearly depicted by Atwood in her creation of Offred.
Sexual violence
The prevalence of rape and pornography in the pre-Gilead world justified their establishment of the new order.
women are better protected in Gilead, they are treated with respect and kept safe from violence
while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it, as we see at Jezebel’s, provides the Commanders with a ready stable of prostitutes to service the male elite.
Most important, sexual violence is apparent in the Ceremony, which compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders
the man and the Handmaid are required to have businesslike, non-erotic sex with the wife present
Despite all these arrangements, not enough babies are being born. Everybody is secretly breaking the rules
We're constantly reminded of the lovelessness and absence of eroticism in this society, as well as the absence of choice and free will.
Doubling
Although Atwood insists on the individuality of Offred, she is nevertheless aware of the idea of the doppelgänger
identical twins- such exact replication suggests to us a denial of our own uniqueness.' Offred, so keen to assert her own individuality, is alert to ways she may not be unique.
Offred is acutely aware that Ofglen and her are identically dressed, so they might appear to be replicas of each other- Offred even sees the Commander's wife as a sort of reflection of herself
she is a replica of the previous Offred- like the current Offred, she was found out by Serena Joy after the Commander took her to Jezebel's. ‘feel her presence, my ancestress, my double'.
she and Nick share something in common; they are both aware of their illicit situation the first time they meet alone
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The eyes
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Both their name and their insignia, a winged eye, symbolize the eternal watchfulness of God and the totalitarian state.
. In Gilead’s theocracy, the eye of God and of the state are assumed to be one and the same.
Anyone could be an Eye, and the assumption is that characters are always being watched
visual aspects of spying are emphasized when the Handmaids are supposed to be kept from both seeing and being seen
As reproductive objects, they must not be sexualized and they are provided freedom from the lascivious male gaze. But the watching the government does is even more invasive.
Red
The red color of the costumes worn by the Handmaids symbolizes fertility, which is the caste’s primary function.
Red suggests the blood of the menstrual cycle and of childbirth. At the same time, however, red is also a traditional marker of sexual sin, hearkening back to the scarlet letter
the Handmaids’ reproductive role supposedly finds its justification in the Bible, in some sense they commit adultery by having sex with their Commanders
The Handmaids’ red garments, then, also symbolize the ambiguous sinfulness of the Handmaids’ position in Gilead.