Sanity II (5)

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred has a constant desire to keep her sanity. In her mind this is the only way of survival.

“I know where I am, and who, and what day it is. These are tests and I am sane. Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough when the time comes.”

As I mentioned in my previous post, I felt as if the society, unknowingly, helps her keep her sanity by placing a cushion with the word “FAITH” in all capital letters on it in her room. But Offred has her own tools to help her keep her sanity. One of the tools she uses most often is making distinctions about valid objects. “The red of the smile is the same as the red of the tulips in Serena Joys garden.” She demonstrates this on page 43 when she is observing the dead bodies hanging in white. She takes her time to pick apart details and make connections, but she knows herself there is no connection. This paragraph seems quite pointless to us, but this is how she goes through her daily life without completely giving herself over to this new society.

We see her again making distinctions between two different things on page 120. When she receives her egg she then makes a distinction between the egg and the moon. At a time where most people would just sit and eat their meal, she talks about how Good must look like an egg. And how the life of an egg is on the inside and how there must be life inside the moon. She then goes to talk about how in reduced circumstances there is a desire to live, which then attaches itself to strange objects. She goes on about how she would like to own a pet.

The mind is a very powerful thing. I think that we underestimate the ability it has to help keep our sanity. At the same time, our mind can also cause us to go insane. But Offred uses her mind to its full potential, in hope that by doing these tests and making distinctions between objects, when the time comes she will not have lost herself. I think that Offred, through all of this, realizes that her mind is her best friend in this isolated society. 

Sanity I (4)

There is something I came across in the first reading of The Handmaid’s Tale that has been on my mind ever sense. From our reading so far we get the idea that Offred is a very optimistic women that has to use her mind to keep her sane. If she gives herself over to the new society there is no going back, and if she goes against the new society then she fears what might happen. To keep herself intact with both lives, she often recalls things about her loved ones and details about what she thinks happened to them. There is an entire section in eighteen about what she thinks happened to her lover Luke. She assumes the best and the worst all at once. She even says on page 116,

“The things I believe can’t all be true, though one of them must be. But I believe in all of them, all three versions of Luke, at one and the same time. This contradictory way of believing seems to me right now, the only way I can believe anything. Whatever the truth is, I will be ready for it.”

But alone her mind cannot keep her sane. I have found that through out her daily journey she receives words of optimism. I first noticed this when she was in her room.

“I go to the window and sit on the window seat, which is too narrow for comfort. There’s a hard little cushion on it, with a petit-point cover: FAITH, in square print, surrounded by a wreath of lilies.”

I found it strange that in a society that forbids reading, they leave a word like FAITH for women to read. As if it is a gift from God saying to have faith in Him and all will be all right.

The next place that I noticed a word like this come up in the story was on page 116. This is just after she has come up with all of the scenarios about Luke and she says, “One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words: In Hope.”

This might be a bit of a long shot, but I feel like these words that are left for her viewing subconsciously lift Offred’s spirits and keep her optimism strong. 

The Freedom to Choose (3)

Have you ever thought about a life without freedom? I am sure we all have once or twice, but we never imagine it happening to us. We are often told not to take things for granted, but have you ever really thought deeply about it? In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood the women have lost every ounce of their freedom. All they are aloud to do on their own without supervision is breath. They have become “two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices”, says the narrator on page 146.

The only word that comes to my mind currently is, “shocking”. I am shocked that these women are turned into breeders and sexual intercourse has turned into something that is only seen for its main purpose. That they are no longer given the freedom to chose what they would like to wear on any given day or where they would like to walk or sit. They can’t even take a bath when they want to.

This is when I actually began to realize how important it was not to take things for granted. In the areas where we live we are given the freedom to do almost anything. I can come home any day and sit down to watch my favorite show, or read my favorite book without being punished. These women live in fear or doing something wrong and becoming an “unwomen”. This is a rather short entry but this has been on my mind since I read the first few chapters. This book and many other’s, like Fahrenheit 451 teach you to treasure the simplest things like reading and writing. 

Sweat (2)

After our class discussion last week in Women’s Literature, I realized how much I actually enjoyed the short story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston. Not that I did not enjoy it the first time I read it, but while going through and discussing different things about the story, it brought many things to my attention that I found quite interesting.

Sweat was not easy to read. The language was difficult because it was written as one might really talk in the Deep South a long time ago. For example instead of writing “I don’t care if you ever finish”, the narrator would write “Ah don’t keer if you never git through.” I often found myself reading it aloud to figure out what the characters were saying. But apart from the hard to read dialect, Sweat was full of really interesting spiritual references and also the concept of “karma”. 

The main feminine character, Delia, is not your average woman. She is strong and straightforward. I think that no one would want to be in the situation that she is in, but because of how strong she was and the way she reacts to her situation makes her admirable. Her husband physically and mentally abuses her soon after their marriage for 15 years, and it never stops. But even though sometimes she takes the beatings, she never gives up. I know for a fact that if I were in that position, I would have hit the ground running after the first beating. But she knew that her husband would get what he deserves. She even said after her husband and her had had a fight that, “Sykes, like everybody else, is gointer reap his sowing.” And until this day would come she would stand firm, and because she did so, she is rewarded and he is punished at the end of the story.

Another thing that I found very intriguing about this story was the many references to parts in the bible. Growing up in a Christian home, I picked up on these references quite quickly. Religion seems to be a big part of this short story. Going to church on Sundays and sacrament are mentioned countless times. Her husband even gets angry with her for cleaning when she mentions she had just “taken sacrament at the church house” but had come home and returned working. He even calls a hypocrite for doing so. This is because Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. But what really caught my attention was the description in the last paragraph of the story.

“She could scarcely reach the Cinaberry tree, where she waited in the growing heat while inside she knew the cold river was creeping up and up to extinguish the eye which must know by now that she knew.”

This reference to a river rising is suppose to illustrate justice. The Nile River in the bible represents purity and this is the river of purity “extinguishing” the eye (her husband). I just thought this was such a great way to describe her husband getting what he deserved. Anyone could have just said that her husband died because he did her wrong. Another obvious biblical reference is the issue of the snake. Serpents in the bible represent the devil, and when he brings the snake to the house, the snake ends up being what kills him.

I think that Sweat just goes to show all of us that what goes around comes around. ;)