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Lauren Croteau
Dr. McCarthy
UHON 1010
4 November 2016
Flowers Cannot Empower
Margaret Atwood utilizes flower imagery throughout The Handmaids Tale. Flowers are a
symbol of femininity and fertility, so it is both unusual and expected that they should be common
in a society that discourages femininity yet relies on fertility. As much as they may seem like a
break in a male-dominated and unembellished landscape, flowers embody the system that orders
women to take on rigid roles as reproducers. By linking flowers to suffering and male
dominance, Atwood uses flower symbolism to argue against women using the sexualization of
their bodies as means for empowerment.
Atwood uses flowers decoratively throughout the novel, as they are aesthetically pleasing
yet insubstantial. Offreds room contains decorations symbolizing her role in society, featuring a
watercolor print of flowers that are soft and delicate and lacking even a glass covering that could
harm their observer. Yet Offred insists that this room is not [her] room, [she] refuses to say
[hers], indicating that even a room decorated to symbolize her femininity is out of her control
(8). Flowers in vases and on Chinese rugs add a feminine air to Serena Joys domain in the living
room. Even though hes supposed to ask permission to enter it, the Commander violates his
wifes jurisdiction over the sitting room and she doesnt even get that, (86). Offred finds
flowers on the furniture in the hotel too. While the first two places seem like rooms designed by
women for women, the presence of flowers in the hotel where women are explicitly and almost
comically objectified give light to the flowers true purpose: to reinforce womens roles as

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decorative creatures whose value lies in their sexual organs. The decorative use of flowers and
the control men have over these falsely feminine spaces exemplify the lack of control women
have.
The presence of Serena Joys garden alone may lead the reader to believe Gilead is giving
its women some control, and Offred herself even describes it as subversive. However, it is just
another conciliatory measure and does not symbolize bodily autonomy. The garden is
something for [the Wives] to order and maintain and care for, merely an illusion of power
bestowed only upon elite women (12). Serena Joy does not even do most of the gardening; that is
left to the Guardians. Men are still in control of the sexuality women supposedly reclaimed. The
exception being an incident where Offred finds Serena Joy cutting the seedpods off the flowers
in some blitzkrieg, some kamikaze, committed on the swelling genitalia of the flowers (153).
Serena Joys violent destruction of the genital organs of her own flowers displays internalized
misogyny and contrasts the idea of flowers as a symbol of empowerment.
Offred notes at the beginning of the novel that flowers are still allowed, a statement
implying not much else is allowed (7). Flowers from their introduction are a conciliatory
measure, some semblance of femininity the oppressive regime permits. Even so, the flowers do
not bring the women any significant pleasure. Offred feels a heaviness and a ripeness when
inspecting Serena Joys garden (153). Her role as the reproductive organ in society is then
reinforced by this garden in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable. She later reiterates this
sentiment when describing the garden which stinks of flowers, of pulpy growth because of all
the prodigal breeding taking place there (181). Her sexuality remains a burden to her and the
allowance of flowers, a representation of her sexuality, do not give Offred any control.

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Atwood repeatedly links the red tulips in Serena Joys garden to wounds and suffering.
The scars Offred imagines on her husband are the color of tulips, and the blood from the dead
mans mouth is the same as the red of the tulips (105, 33). Offred sees tulips as something
bloody and unpleasant, linked to the men who have put her in this situation. She describes tulips
as violently self-destructive when they are empty, their petals thrown out like shards, (45). This
resembles the suicidal and devaluing effect of being empty, or childless, in the handmaids
society. Offred does not take comfort in these images, nor can she empower herself through her
sexuality when these are the images she associates with her body.
Atwood not only comments on the lack of bodily autonomy in her dystopian society but
also calls attention to the lack of empowerment for the women of the past by using dried flowers.
The dried flowers represent the past, as they are linked to cigarette papers, soft and dry pink
and powdery, from the time before, contraband in the present day but something Offred desires
(90). Like dried flower petals, she muses as she examines the semen stains on the mattress in
her room, another representation of the past and pleasure she pines for (52). Even then, women
were not granted full bodily autonomy and were policed by the government and their patriarchal
society. Offreds fond memories of the past consist of smoking and sex, enjoyable activities
perhaps but not activities that grant her any purpose or value. Flowers were never a symbol of
empowerment and they cannot be in the dystopian Gilead.
The flowers failure to grant any bodily autonomy to the women of Gilead culminates in
Offreds act of theft. She wants to steal something in a display of defiance and independence, but
she decides on stealing something that will not be missed (98). She takes a withered daffodil
that some housekeeper will soon throw out. Offred plans to put it under the mattress and leave it
there, for the next woman, the one who comes after [her], to find (98). She counts on the fact

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that another will come after her, therefore conceding that the stolen daffodil will change nothing;
reclaiming the flower, or the body, does not work while she remains oppressed. Daffodils
symbolize inner reflection and come from the genus narcissus, named after the Greek god whose
self-absorbance brought his destruction. Offred takes a flower that represents the self and even
that does not satisfy her. Nothing comes of this act, neither reprimand nor reward meet Offred
when she returns to her room. That which makes Offred essential also subjugates her, and so the
daffodil theft cannot empower someone who is oppressed by the thing they are trying to take
advantage of.
Handmaids in Gilead serve a crucial role to their society while simultaneously suffering
the disadvantages of being at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The former lends itself to the
possibility of progress; women could use their importance to exert power over others. The latter,
however, stops this from ever coming to fruition; women simply cannot reclaim the source of
their power when they are so thoroughly subdued. Offred claims she tried to include good things
in the story, flowers, for instance, because where would we be without them? (267). The
handmaids would not be in their situation were they not like flowers, valued only for their beauty
in one time and only for their genitals in another. Flowers as a representation of a womans body
then cannot be used as a symbol of empowered femininity but instead as a representation of the
society that values women only for their reproductive capabilities.

Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986. Print.