Stuff from my head
2009 March 26
So I have a very visual mind and needed to draw some stuff that I have been seeing in my head while reading a Handmaid’s Tale, so I thought I would scan it in so you all could see. This is barely scraching the surface of what is in my head visualy for this book, but it’s hard to render everything you want to. I don’t know why these were some of the things I remember most vidily from the book, but they are.
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I want to know more about that winged eyeball, Hillary.
Your “visualization” of the novel also reminds me of the third “task” I assigned you all on Monday (which we never got around to…): thinking about how we represent, differently, what is being represented, and what difference those different representations make: if we write, draw, describe or animate the image? Or put to work Nat’s new idea of auralizing?
So: consider all of yourselves re- invited to think (and play, here) some more about how you might best represent your understandings (of this book, or others, or other ideas from this class).
The eye ball was the eye that I saw Offred seeing everywhere, especially above her in her room, but also all over the country, on the cars, on the uniforms of the men, ect.
That article I referenced on Wednesday by Pamela Cooper has a lot of references to that eye (those eyes?). I think you’d enjoy reading it.
I like the red dot in the gears–it’s simple but very expressive of Offred’s sense of powerlessness and urgency (it’s about to get crushed!).
I was wondering why you included the quotation “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.” Maybe to provide a setting/context, to show the transition from what used to be so normal (a gym) to something that was made scary, inescapable, and oppressive (a society where even sleep is regulated)? I was just wondering if you had a particular reason, since the other quotations seemed to be more idea-based and conceptual, ones that stuck out in my mind, and this one seemed different from those, more just descriptive or narrative.
That gym quote is the very first line of the book and i liked how it was so different then the other quotes i chose. I wanted to capture the difference in types of things that were “said” in the book; things like the reconstruction quote and the last quote (which is the last line of her part of the story) and the descriptive quality of the first one. I like your interpretation though! It is definitely setting the stage because that is the first thing you read.
It’s funny, but when I attempted to draw something like this in class I ended up just trying to draw Offred’s white wings. The final product was remarkably similar to yours with the cap-like part at the top and the wings extending forward around the face. The only difference was that mine was longer and covered the neck as well. I like the winged eye too. Until I saw that drawing I had completely forgotten how large a part those eyes played in the book since the movie changed the symbol. I think it got changed to a pyramid but I don’t quite remember. I like the winged eye much better since it helps you understand how omnipresent the security and intelligence organizations are.