The Handmaid's Tale: Favorite Passage & Thoughts

A quote that I found interesting from The Handmaid’s Tale is the description of the FAITH pillow:

I go to the window and sit on the window seat, which is too narrow for comfort. There’s a hard little cushion on it, with a petit point cover: FAITH, in square print, surrounded by a wreath of lilies. FAITH is a faded blue, the leaves of the lilies a dingy green. This is a cushion once used elsewhere, worn but not enough to throw out. Somehow it’s been overlooked. (Atwood 57)

In this passage, Margaret Atwood characterizes the faith in Gilead through the description of a single pillow. The tone she creates with words like “narrow,” “square,” “faded,” and “dingy,” show how much true faith has been overlooked in Gilead. Religion in this society has as little faith as possible. People buy mass produced “Soul Scrolls” from machines that read in sharp metallic voices, and parts of prayers are constantly removed from sermons. This is very ironic considering the fact that Gilead is a theocracy. This quote shows that this treatment towards religion has taken a toll on the faith in the society. It has been worn out to the point where it is “dingy” and “faded.” However, the last few lines saying that the pillow has been overlooked show that even though the faith has been worn out, it still exists in some people.  

All in all, I really enjoyed reading The Handmaid’s Tale. The plot and concepts kept my attention throughout the whole novel. While the novel was not exactly happy, I did love the descriptions and imagery that Margaret Atwood used. My favorite description is when Offred is talking about her past life and she says, “We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories” (57). I enjoyed the image that Atwood conveyed through this description. I also liked the flashbacks that she used to tell Offred’s story before she was a handmaid. These were very effective in that they made the contrast between Offred’s old life and new life sharper. They also made me have more admiration for Offred to know what she went through in the past. Because I enjoyed this book, it let me form a deeper connection to Offred than I otherwise would not have been able to do. With this in mind, I have a greater understanding and appreciation for the novel.