Fading from Red to White
"That is how I feel: white, flat, thin. I feel transparent. Surely they will be able to see through me. Worse, how will I be able to hold on to Luke, to her, when I'm so flat, so white? I feel as if there's not much left of me; they will slip through my arms, as if I'm made of smoke, as if I'm a mirage, fading before their eyes."
Margaret Atwood throughout the entirety of her novel, places great emphasis on color and how it defines a person. The Commissioners' wives wear blue, the housekeepers wear green and the handmaidens wear red. People in this society are characterized solely by their color. This passage contrasts the constant insistence of the bright colors the women are forced to wear with using color to describe how they feel. Offred wears one of the brightest colors, yet feels white. White is a dull color, a color that doesn't draw attention and goes unnoticed, a color that is often forgot about. When the handmaids go out in public, it's impossible for them to go unnoticed. Despite how visible they are in society, they feel entirely invisible.
Margaret Atwood grants color immense power. A color has the power to dictate what will become of your future. A color dictates the rights you have at home. A color dictates when you get to leave the house and even if you get to leave the house. Color dissolves families and decides who you get to sexually be involved with. Color has so much power that it even begins to dictate how you're allowed to think. Color had the power to separate Offred from her family and strip her of her true self. Everything has been taken away to the point there's no color left in Offred's life but white. Red has reduced her into a vessel that is only deemed useful for providing a mechanism in which children can be born. Offred as a human and a person is given no value, only the organs she pertains in her body are of any true value. Her memories, if any still remain are dull and fading. Her personality is withering away; she's fading as if she were smoke. There's nothing left for her and of her to grasp on to just air. Offred's a ghost of sorts, white and intangible.
Margaret Atwood throughout the entirety of her novel, places great emphasis on color and how it defines a person. The Commissioners' wives wear blue, the housekeepers wear green and the handmaidens wear red. People in this society are characterized solely by their color. This passage contrasts the constant insistence of the bright colors the women are forced to wear with using color to describe how they feel. Offred wears one of the brightest colors, yet feels white. White is a dull color, a color that doesn't draw attention and goes unnoticed, a color that is often forgot about. When the handmaids go out in public, it's impossible for them to go unnoticed. Despite how visible they are in society, they feel entirely invisible.
Margaret Atwood grants color immense power. A color has the power to dictate what will become of your future. A color dictates the rights you have at home. A color dictates when you get to leave the house and even if you get to leave the house. Color dissolves families and decides who you get to sexually be involved with. Color has so much power that it even begins to dictate how you're allowed to think. Color had the power to separate Offred from her family and strip her of her true self. Everything has been taken away to the point there's no color left in Offred's life but white. Red has reduced her into a vessel that is only deemed useful for providing a mechanism in which children can be born. Offred as a human and a person is given no value, only the organs she pertains in her body are of any true value. Her memories, if any still remain are dull and fading. Her personality is withering away; she's fading as if she were smoke. There's nothing left for her and of her to grasp on to just air. Offred's a ghost of sorts, white and intangible.
I think Atwood's use of color is really powerful too, it also kind places everyone in a class system. There's already a kind of hierarchy in the home, and with their colored uniforms being worn outside of home a passing wife and handmaid immediately know one another's role in this society
ReplyDeleteI also think that Margaret Atwood's use of color is very powerful. I feel like by using these colors she is symbolizing something bigger that we deal with in our world: racism. A huge problem that we have in our society today is that we judge people based on the color of their skin. In the handmaid's tale, Atwood really emphasizes this within sexism, and judgement within the sex. Male's do not give women the time of day depending on what color they wear, and women judge and do not associate with women of different color.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you all. Atwood's use of color is powerful as it puts a label on all of the groups within the novel. I wrote about the colors in my post earlier because I found them so interesting. The use of colors creates a feel to the book that makes you interpret things differently and more creatively. Colors may mean different things to you or interpret the reading differently when your reading. I also found it interesting the way the color can mean so many different things so it makes you wonder the whole time while your reading what the author actually intended it to be. In my opinion, the use of colors is what makes this book so interesting!
ReplyDeleteColor is such a simple way to see divisions, almost as a visual hierarchy. Authors tend to use it as their most basic form of symbolism, but I think it's often underappreciated; so, I am glad you made a post about this- and that we discussed it in class. Atwood's use of colors, in my opinion, is part of her use of satire in the fact that privilege is (partially) based on color both in the Republic and in our 21st century America.
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