Flower motif and nature imagery

Quote

Character

Chapter

“On the wall above the chair, a picture, framed but with no glass: a print of flowers, blue irises, watercolour.”

Offred

2

“Many of the Wives have such gardens, it’s something for them to order and maintain and care for.”

Offred

3

“the tulips are opening their cups, spilling out colour. The tulips are red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they have been cut and are beginning to heal there.”

Offred

3

“I look at the one red smile. The red of the smile is the same as the red of the tulips in Serena Joy’s garden, towards the base of the flowers where they are beginning to heal. The red is the same but there is no connection. The tulips are not tulips of blood, the red smiles are not flowers.”

Offred

6

“It’s papered in small blue flowers, forget-me-nots, with curtains to match. There’s a blue bath mat, a blue fake-fur cover on the toilet seat; all this bathroom lacks from the time before is a doll whose skirt conceals the extra roll of toilet paper.”

Offred

12

“Even at her age she still feels the urge to wreathe herself in flowers. No use for you, I think at her... you’re withered. They’re the genital organs of plants.”

Offred

14

“There is something subversive about this garden of Serena’s, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard, though silently.”

Offred

25

“I’ve tried to put some of the good things in as well. Flowers, for instance, because where would we be without them?”

Offred

41