Theme Of Red In Offred

“I never looked good in red, it’s not my color” (8).

Could this might be an allusion? As Offred is referring too as red is not her choice of color. Red is a powerful, violent color. It is the color of blood, which each handmaids needs to wear throughout the day. Is this foreshadowing disaster throughout the book, violence maybe?

“Or I would help Rita make the bread, sinking my hands into that soft resistant warmth which is so much like flesh” (11).

Is Offred creating an analogy as she is watching Rita knead the bread? As she is forbidden to touch the flesh of her loved ones, as if reminiscing the time when she could have that opportunity in her life. However, she is held back against the following, of her fantasies.

“I was sounding like that, voice of a monotone, voice of a doll” (16).

This seems to symbolize Offred’s current life, she is banned, speechless, to speak out. She no longer

The wife of The Commander, she is strongly an anti-feminist. She is unhappy in her life, hate and cruelty towards the handmaids. Her soft sentimental cravings could be seen as euphemism, she craves the sadness in all, as in being in a male-dominated society. She has similar taste to Hitler, who craved domination, by lessening a group, which were Jews, but as Serena Joy is doing, she is lessening the Handmaids, to just be a tool for offspring.

“That is how I feel: white, flat, thin. I feel transparent” (85).

This metaphor reminds me of being wax paper, white, flat, but transparent. Only used for when it is needed. Is this what Offred’s perspective might be? She is considered as a tool for society, she is no longer relevant to others, she is simply a small rock that everyone steps on. Partially considered as Jews, who were thin, white, but had no ‘significance’ towards non-Jews.

“They looked like drowned feet, swollen and boneless, expect for the color. They looked like lungs”