r a woman such as Offred it really is salvation, she can talk all she wants, and agree with everything said to her, but until she produces for Gilead she wont really be believed as a supporter. The idea of pregnancy as salvation for women mainly stems from Rachels cry, Give me children or else I die. (Genesis 30:1) In Gilead, this holds more truth than it did when it was said by Rachel. The Bible is taken so literally in this dystopian society that a woman who cant produce probably will die as a result of banishment to the colonies or in her attempts to become pregnant. The symbolic interpretation of the Bible is lost by this society and they can find only literal meaning in the Bible, which leads to sometimes misconstrued ideas and systems.In a novel so full with Biblical references and themes that the name of the area it is set in is Biblical, it is impossible to discuss every Biblical element within its pages. The shopping for daily bread and other food takes place at stores with names like Loaves and Fishes and Lilies, and Milk and Honey, seven of the sections of the book are named Night, and the fundamental base of the societys system is based on a few select Biblical passages. The use of the Bible in this dystopian novel is frequent and always in the background, weaved in among the other themes and ideas. The literal interpretation of the Bible by the Gileadean Fathers proves itself to be dangerous when viewed with the eyes of our current society. The lack of symbolic analysis of the Bible leaves little room in which Gileadeans can safely move. To prevent its people from challenging the interpretations made by the Gileadean Fathers they forbid all reading, and in fact one of the men suspected to be the Commander in Offreds household in the Historical Notes is credited with having said, Our big mistake was teaching them to read. We wont do that again. The use of the Bible in this novel is to establish laws within its ...
