“Gilead was used to present the irony overhanging society.”
Gilead, the totalitarian society situated just outside of Boston, US. The roots of New England and Puritan beliefs embed the nature of male dominance and the prehistoric pastimes of ancient biblical beliefs. The innate settings of a pensioners garden, or perhaps the study of an “wise” older man prompt the predisposed inclination of sexism embedded in our minds. When one looks further, the layers of irony begin to reveal themselves through the simple yet deliberate settings Atwood purposely chose.
Harvard, the intelligence which resides there in the current day society plays direct contrast to the simple minded society which was created in efforts only considering the simple needs of the creators. The inability to consider the greater good and humanities simple living needs not practiced in the Harvard gym are the basis of the study for people on the grounds today. The facility trains the best and the brightest to lead the world in the way that it isn’t in handmaids tale.
Commanders Study, It is seen as a place of both liberation and temptation. She takes part in acts of unlawful classification such as the scrabble games, moisturiser, and normal chat with commander. There is symbolism of the words she comes up with – exercising her freedom within the Oasis from the barren forbidden world. It is the closest link to previous times, “A flip backward of time”. The propose of her visiting the space, remove some of the tension and dissipates the dark reality of the rest of the scene. It highlights how filtered the handmaids tale really is, the intense wakening of how suppressed and forbidden her life really is when she is allowed to read to exercise her thought. The room also highlights how simple and ironic the Commander is, he encourages the things he goes so hard against and also he uses it to exercise his boredom through the shadow of the good deed he is creating for Offred. The complete isolation which the regime has built around everybody has now come back to play against him and his deep directors of selfishness enables him to cover his own fulfillments through false kindness. Cynical, in his acts of teasing her and pilling her debt to him. Dangling her freedom as bait which in-fact reduces her freedom further as she would take the brunt of the blame.
The garden, The garden is a huge symbol for gilead society. The impulse of nature runs directly along side the the totalitarian regime that is present in the gilead society. It also again highlights the irony in the text, as Serena Joys only task is to look after the garden, and it seems a ironic that an infertile woman has to aid to the reproduction of nature, it also fills her with the sense of power she has lost in other aspects of her life, she seemingly takes joy in mutilating the flowers. Also, flowers which as discussed before serve as a symbol for prosperity and hope, which is somewhat tantalising especially to the handmaids who have the inability of freedom. Flowers have many connotations especially within the novel they symbolise blossoming life, beauty, fertility, freedom and prosperity.