The Wall In The Handmaid's Tale

316 Words2 Pages
In the story, The Handmaid’s Tale, the narrator, Offred, describes “the wall”. She states, “Now we turn our backs on the church and there is the thing we’ve in truth come to see: the Wall,” (Atwood 31). Offred describes the wall as being over a hundred years old and also notes that it is made of red brick. Sentries and barbed wire have been added to keep the people of Gilead inside. Besides keeping the people contained, it is also utilized to hang the bodies of those who have committed crimes, both in the past and present. To illustrate, Offred writes, “They have committed atrocities and must be made into examples, for the rest…. What we are supposed to feel towards these bodies is hatred and scorn,” (Atwood 33). In this case, the bodies