Crabtree said that the brownish green of the aunts' clothes is meant to convey a militaristic degree of authority, calling back to the military uniforms of World War I, while the dull, pale green of the Marthas is meant to evoke a sense that these women are "wither[ing] into their environment."
The color green typically represents... See full answer below. growth and new life, but in Atwood's novel, green is worn by the Marthas. Marthas are older, infertile women, and thus, the dull green represents women who are fading into society, becoming part of the background instead of the story.
The Marthas' dress makes the women who wear it, like Rita and Cora, serviceable but not desirable—useful and invisible. Women are divided into a small range of social categories, each one signified by a specifically colored dress in a similar style. Handmaids wear red, Marthas wear green, and Wives wear blue.
As with Star Trek uniforms, the colors denote a person's role in society. Robin's-egg blue for the wives, charcoal and black for the husbands, dark brown for the aunties, and of course dark red for the handmaids. "The Handmaid's Tale" star Elisabeth Moss and author Margaret Atwood pose for a photo together.
The wives of the Commanders don lavish blue dresses, the Marthas, or servants, wear green dresses, the Econowives of the poor men wear blue and green striped dresses, the young daughters of the Commanders wear white, the Aunts in charge of the Red Center wear khaki dresses, and the handmaids wear red.
Wives are dressed in modest dresses of varying shades of teal/blue, indicative of their supposed 'purity' as non-sinners (compared to the violent, but fertile, shade of red the handmaids wear).
Blue is often associated with the Virgin Mary and purity and serenity - it used to be considered a very feminine colour, so perhaps that is why the Wives wear it. Red is considered the colour of life, due to the association with blood, and Handmaids are all about bringing forth new life and fertility.
It was an extrapolation of the enforced silence, which is the idea that handmaids are told to be quiet, and they're forced to be quiet." Miller said the rings started out as a voluntary experiment in DC.
Aunt Lydia's relationship with Offred symbolises the oppressive control that Gilead has over women. Furthermore, by placing a woman in such a violent role, Atwood is suggesting that women can be and are complicit in perpetuating dangerous patriarchal ideas and oppressing other women.
To symbolise fertility
The Handmaids wear red dresses and red capes, which they must wear in public. Wearing red indicates the Handmaids' fertility, symbolising their primary role which is to produce a child. Only those women who are fertile wear red.
Various environmental crises have left much of the population sterile, so these women occupy a special place in society, and their fertility makes them both special and uniquely degraded. They are raped by their commanders in regular 'Ceremonies' in order to bear children for the commanders and their wives to raise.
According to the Sons of Jacob, lilac means that Hannah – renamed Agnes by 'adoptive' parents the MacKenzies – is ready for her next stage of life: marriage. At the grand old age of 12, Gilead thinks that June and Luke's daughter and her peers should be settling down and doing their duty to Gilead by starting families.
The only item of clothing they wear that is not red are a pair of white colored "wings", which they wear on their heads to frame and hide their faces. The "wings" give the Handmaids next to no peripheral vision; they can only see what is directly in front of them.
The handmaids' identification tattoo is reminiscent of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany but also forces them to be aware, every time they see it, that they lack free will. Despite the fact that the handmaids are integral to Gilead's survival, they are accorded no privileges of person.
To become an Aunt, a young woman must receive a calling to higher service. They then go through an interview process at Ardua Hall with the four Founding Aunts (Elizabeth, Helena, Vidala and Lydia in that order) to see if they have the right temperament to formally join.
The Handmaid is sent on to the next assignment. By giving birth, she can't be considered an unwoman. But giving birth and giving the child away is painful - it is part of her punishment, the pregnancies and unwanted adoptions part of her repaying her debt to society for her sins.
Lydia sees Janine as a good girl who is unfairly judged and misunderstood. This is the first inclination of a softening heart that audiences preview for Aunt Lydia.
The childbirth scene is primal and intimate and prompts the women to confess their secrets: June tells Serena that she didn't kill her when she had the chance because she simply didn't want to, and Serena realizes she has been forced into essentially being a handmaid in the Wheelers house and begs June to take her baby ...
In the novel, the red cloak and dress, worn with a white bonnet, are together described as a “modesty costume.” In Gilead—the repressive American regime in which the main protagonist Offred is forced to live—it is intended to function as a sign of female subservience.
It's the standard greeting between people in Gilead, and it is supposed to mean that the people having the conversation are under God's watchful gaze and protection. However, when women use the greeting to each other, it gains another meaning. All of the women in Gilead are subject to the will of men.
In Gilead, a clean environment is intrinsically wrapped up with their healthy and moral way of life. By their logic, God blesses Handmaids with fertility because of their green initiatives.
Unwomen are typically sent to the Colonies. “Under His eye”: How Handmaids formally say goodbye to each other in person. By extension, the phrase suggests that someone—a Guardian, a Commander, a fellow Handmaid, God—is always watching.
In the story, an environmental disaster has led to most women becoming infertile, and the small number who are still able to become pregnant are forced to become handmaids, women who are owned by the ruling elite and systematically raped in order to provide them with children.
It is implied that some Wives are capable of bearing children, but most are older women and thus have difficulty conceiving (or their husbands are infertile), which is also hampered by widespread infertility. As a result, Wives have to 'share' their husbands with Handmaids, in order to get a child.
Rather than being married to Commanders, Econowives are fertile women who are married off to Gilead's more ordinary men. As well as being expected to have children, Econowives are expected to take care of their households, and they aren't assigned Marthas to help them.