“We are for breeding purposes…two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices (page 170-171)

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian novel set in the not too distant future. Atwood explores what happens
when conservative men get their way: using religion to control women’s fertility and valuing them according to it.

My visual rep shows that the issue that Atwood raises about men seeking to control women’s fertility, and of women being judged
as useful or useless according to their fertility, are still relevant today. The colour red and flowers symbolise fertility, the main issue
in the novel.

Written in 1984, one of the most raised questions is “when is it set?” If the novel is set in the late 2010s, like the new TV show, then
it becomes a prediction of the future for Atwood.

The novel doesn’t sound far-fetched considering politics today.

I have included a photo of the Global Gag order signing that illustrates the ability of old, white men to control women’s access to
contraception and stop organisations overseas from receiving any funding if they just so much as mention the word “abortion”.
Making decisions that will affect millions of women, without a single woman present. Sound familiar? Gilead society is also strictly
against abortions. Former doctors who had given abortions are seen hanging as a warning in Chapter 6. I have used photo of the
Global gag order because it encapsulates, in one photo, the frighteningly reality of the prediction Atwood made 33 years ago.

I have also included pictures of Julia Gillard and the media coverage of the empty fruit bowl in her kitchen. Despite being a powerful
and competent woman, the former PM was judged “unwomanly” by some because she had no children. Senator Heffernan called
her “deliberately barren”, saying she was unfit to lead because she has no children. The empty fruit bowl picture symbolised her
“empty womb”, and the unnaturalness, in their eyes, of a woman who chooses not to have a family.

I have also included images of the slut shaming and victim blaming that happens on a daily basis currently and the scene from the
Red Centre where the women sat around Janine, who was gang raped as a 14-year-old, and chanted that it was her fault because
she led them on.

I have used the colour red for my poster because it is a recurring motif throughout the novel. It’s the colour that the handmaids
must wear to highlight who they are and what their role is. Offred says, “Everything except the wings around my face is red:
the colour of blood, which defines us” (p. 8). Offred means that it is an identifying feature for them, reminding them of their duty, but
it’s also more than that. She says it’s the colour of blood, symbolising menstruation and blood from childbirth. Linked to the colour
red, is the fact that almost all the flowers seem to be red.

Atwood also creates vivid imagery through the use of flowers, which help to explore the theme of fertility and separate women in
Gilead based on their fertility. This enables her to also address the issue of gender roles, and women’s fertility as a political
instrument. As something that grows, blooms and reproduces, flowers symbolise fertility perfectly. In the novel, wives who can’t
have children of their own, channel that desire through their flowers. Offred sees Serena cutting flowers, and wonders, “was
it…some kamikaze, committed on the swelling genitalia of the flowers? The fruiting body.” Linked through the colour red, it’s almost
like Serena is attacking Offred instead of the flowers. Attacking the fact that she will be able to bear her children instead of Serena
herself. The flowers in my visual rep are wilted to symbolise the fertility of the “Unwomen”. The flower no longer blooms, and
neither does their fertility.

In conclusion, men believing that they have the right to control women’s bodies and valuing them for their fertility is an issue
addressed in the Handmaid’s Tale and is also still currently relevant. In both the novel and my poster, the theme of fertility is
addressed with the use of flowers and the colour red.
Atwood for the Guardian in 2012:
“I made a rule for myself: I would not include anything that human beings had not already done in some other place or time… The
group-activated hangings, the tearing apart of human beings, the clothing specific to castes and classes, the forced childbearing
and the appropriation of the results, the children stolen by regimes and placed for upbringing with high-ranking officials, the
forbidding of literacy…: all had precedents, and many were to be found not in other cultures and religions, but within western
society."