The Handmaid's Tale

When Offred and Oglen are discussing “the grapevine” she talks about a connection path of information between handmaids where they pass information among each other. The password they use to decipher who is a part of the grapevine is “Mayday.” This is a very specific word to use, and Atwood must have wanted there to be a meaning behind it. By definition, mayday is the international radiotelephone distress signal, used by ships and aircraft. Atwood may have chosen to use this word because mayday means “come help me.” The grapevine the handmaids created is a source of information to try and keep them connected to the society. They use this password to tell whether or not their partnered handmaid is in on it, or possibly an eye who could report them. Mayday is a plea for help, and the handmaids use this to see which among them are there to help. Ofglen adds something interesting to this meaning saying, “Don’t use it unless you have to” (202). This adds to Atwood’s opinion on how woman view each other. You don’t want to ask for help from too many handmaids, because they have created a private group, and do not want to help many others. They also know that if someone is caught, they will report on each other in a second to save themselves. Each woman is alone, and they will fend for themselves no matter what. The word “mayday” symbolizes help, but it is ironic that these women are not too willing to help.

My favorite passage of The Handmaid’s Tale and any other book we’ve read is “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs” (211). Of course, this is what The Commander says to Offred when they begin talking about the society that has been created. He asks her what her opinion is on Gilead, and to protect herself she says she doesn’t have one. However, he can sense her opinion which is why he comes up with this metaphor, as if the murder of all of these people and the horrible lives they are forcing these people to live is mere eggs in the formation of an ommelette. This quote does prove that the officers and higher ranked men in the society do recognize how dysfunctional this society is, and they do know there are problems with it. T The quote is a mean's to show how The Commander downplays the negative activities going on in the society created, and how much he cares about the lives spent to create Gilead. The quote also provides some irony because Gilead is no ommelette.

The Handmaid’s Tale was full of symbolism and social commentary that I truly enjoyed. Atwood has several relevant points and she drives them home very clearly in her story of Offred. However, some of Atwood’s views are displayed a little too radically for me. I do agree that she needed to take such drastic measures and describe the events like the Ceremony between Offred and The Commander. I may be more of a traditional person, but I can’t try to sympathize as well as I should with Offred because I was so uncomfortable with the book. The Birth Ceremony and the constant references to tools removed so the handmaids couldn’t kill themselves were alarming, and took away from my comprehension of the novel. The parts of the novel depicting the salvaging was so foreign to me I had to keep putting the book down. I applaud Atwood’s written masterpiece and I agree with most of her opinions on society, but I had a very hard time reading and analyzing this article because it was so uncomfortable.

We

A constant topic in We is love, and what it means to D-503. He knows nothing of love before he meets I-330. He has infatuation with O-90, but this is nothing compared to true love. When I-330 walks into his life, he starts to develop a soul. He is completely derailed with this new idea of feelings, and feels he loves I-330, even though he doesn’t truly know what love is. According to Webster, love is “affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests”. In actuality, I-330 and D-503 do not share this “love”. Instead, D-503 is in lust with I-330, for she is seducing him. I-330 has larger plans than forming a relationship; she is trying to get to the INTEGRAL, and using D-503 to do so. D-503 is not in love with I-330, but his new soul has created his love for love. Being introduced to all these new feelings a soul has brought to him, D-503 wants to use and express them. And love being the most powerful, D-503 is eager to spread his love, and ironically, I-330 is looking for just that, D-503 to love her. It is argued that D-503 is in love with I-330, but it is nothing more than desire.

My favorite passage of We occurs in the very beginning of the novel because of how riddled with irony it is. D-503 writes, “My pen, accustomed to figures, is powerless to create the music of assonance and rhyme. I shall attempt nothing more than to note down what I see, what I think- or, to be more exact, what we think (that’s right: we; and let this WE be the title of these records)” (4). This passage expresses D-503’s unemotional feelings at the beginning of the book, his plans to write down everything that happens in a mathematician’s life in ONE STATE. What his writing turns out to be is a passionate, romantic, meaningful struggle a man goes through finding himself in a society that does not recognize independence. I love that amount of irony. The use of foreshadowing is also noted in this passage. “I shall attempt nothing more than to write down what I see.” This alludes to the fact that there is something more, and that is just what D-503 ends up writing about, the emotional struggles of life.

I felt a very interesting connection with D-503 in We. I felt it very interesting that not many other people thought in the same way I did. D-503 liked to think in numbers. He loved math because there was one equation, and one answer. There are no different interpretations, or different views on a situation in math. It is either right or wrong. This is why D-503 loved math so much, and in the beginning of the novel this is how he liked to think. When emotions and different outlooks on society came in the equation, he become very uneasy and compared it to √-1. He hated √-1 because of its imaginary property, and that you couldn’t solve it. In discussion, most people thought D-503’s way of thinking in mathematical terms was crazy, and they felt having no definite right or wrong answer was better than the definitive properties of math. I, however, do not think this way in the least and am always frustrated in areas such as literature, in that people have different answers to questions and they can all be right. I much prefer the definitive yes or no properties of math, and We made me realize that. We taught me something about myself, that I would not have otherwise noticed.

Anthem

In Anthem a major symbol to analyze is the “Uncharted Forest.” As Equality 7-2521 explained, “Beyond the plain there lies the Uncharted Forest, about which men must not speak” (24). In the novel, the forest represents freedom, and the fears that come along with it. The society fears freedom. And even the slightest thought of freedom must be oppressed by law. What Equality realizes is that freedom is now his only choice. “We were in the Uncharted Forest. We had not thought of coming here, but our legs had carried our wisdom, and our legs had brought us to the Uncharted Forest against our will” (94). Even though there was such a large fear of the unknown, of personal freedom, Equality’s wisdom brought him to it. The fear of the forest and its “Uncharted” unknown brought Equality to his home and his true love. Freedom brought happiness, and that is the significance of the Uncharted Forest.

“And yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to ourselves that we are a wretch and a traitor. But we feel no burden upon our spirit and no fear in our heart. And it seems to us that our spirit is clear as a lake troubled by no eyes save those of the sun. And in our heart-- strange are the ways of evil!--in our heart there is the first peace we have known in twenty years” (35). This is my favorite quote in Anthem because it represents rebellion. Equality went against his society on several accounts, and doesn’t regret it in the least. This quote reiterates the thought that you shouldn’t regret something that once made you smile. Equality loves knowledge, so he shouldn’t regret learning things the scholars know nothing of, such as the light bulb. He is so passionate about his cause and his invention that he doesn’t care about the consequences he shall face. This is the moment in the novel that foreshadows that Equality will go against his society’s opposition for the better of man kind, and it’s an inspirational quote.

Overall, I took a more positive outlook off of Anthem. It definitely expresses an underdog victory theme with the street sweeper inventing the light bulb while the scholars could not. I did not see the romantic love scene Klimastocles speaks of, but I enjoyed the light mood the relationship between Equality and the Golden One brought to the novel. It took the story from being another Utopian to independence theme to rebirth, and a chance for a new free society to begin. The theme of never giving up on what you believe is also very powerful throughout the story by Rand. Equality fought for what he wanted until the end when he had to flee for his life. The story of Anthem and Equality 7-2521 is inspirational.