Handmaid's Tale- Imagery

     Margaret Atwood uses imagery to describe the drastic change our nation has gone through. Offred is interested in foreign tourists,"I'm looking down...mesmerized by the woman's feet...the way the toes felt, pushed towards the opening in the shoe by the whole weight of the body"(Atwood 28). The place Offred has lived has changed so dramatically that within a lifetime something as mundane as seeing a certain style of shoe seems so significant and 'mesmerizing' that Offred stops to stare at it. This is a testament to the way Offred has been taken from the world she knows and has been forced to conform to a new way of living, and she's so far into settling into this new life that something from the past times is not only a spectacle but a vivid memory that it once was her own reality too. 

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Handmaid's Tale-Metaphor

 The symbol of the red tulips is used throughout The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood to express themes of fertility but also to represent the handmaids. Offred notices the ripeness of the tulips in the garden, "The tulips along the border are redder than ever, opening no longer wine cups but chalices; thrusting themselves up, to what end? They are... empty"(45 Atwood). This instance gives insight into the way Offred bases her self worth. Because the tulip represents her as a handmaid, specifically her fertility, her thoughts on them mirror her thoughts regarding her own self in the aspect of her fertility. Offred sees the tulip as it presents itself to her even though it is empty. It has nothing to bear and therefore why doth it thrust itself up. In other words why does Offred live except to be full with child.  This shows how deeply the cultural of this new world she has found herself in has been ingrained in her and how it affects her self worth as a woman.
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