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 Margaret Atwood, the repeated appearance of the color red draws an interesting yet perverse parallel between femininity and violence. The dominant color of the novel, red is associated with all things female. However, red is in addition the color of blood death and violence therefore are 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 milled The red gloves are lying on the bed. Everything except the wings around my face is red the color blood, which defines us. Here, we are unsure if Atwood is referring to blood as catamenial and feminine, or as the result of disobedience and the violence which results. The women of Handmaid are cloaked in red as a reminder of their fertility. However, in the condition of Gilead, red is not just menstrual blood or blood resulting from birth the red is a threat of death. Offred would later say, I never looked broad(a) 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 knave 12 Offred narrates The tulips are red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they have been cut 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 blatant use of red to relate women with violence can be seen on page 32 But on one bag theres blood, which has seeped thr ough the white cloth, where the mouth must have been. It makes another mouth, a small red one. . . This grinning of blood is what fixes the attention finally. The men who are hanging are meant to scare, as Atwood clearly states, yet meant to scare who?