Eyeliner

Eyeliner, like all makeup, is strictly forbidden for Handmaids in Gilead. The regime's sumptuary laws, enforced by the Aunts, prohibit any cosmetic that might enhance attractiveness or suggest vanity. Handmaids are issued only plain red dresses, white wings, and flat-heeled red shoes; their faces are to remain bare, their hair covered. The prohibition extends to hand lotion and face cream, which are considered vanities—the outside of a Handmaid's body is deemed unimportant, only the insides matter. Offred recalls Aunt Lydia's warning: "Modesty is invisibility... To be seen—to be seen—is to be—her voice trembled—penetrated." Makeup, by making a woman visible and alluring, violates this principle of impenetrable modesty.

Appearance and Use at Jezebel's

Eyeliner surfaces in the narrative during Offred's clandestine visit to Jezebel's, the secret club where Commanders and foreign dignitaries consort with prostitutes. The Commander, eager to transform Offred into a convincing participant, provides her with a costume of purple sequins and feathers, and a small cache of cosmetics: "All he has is a lipstick, old and runny and smelling of artificial grapes, and some eyeliner and mascara." Offred, who has not worn makeup in years, struggles to apply it: "For a moment I think I won't remember how to do any of this, and my first try with the eyeliner leaves me with a smudged black lid, as if I've been in a fight." She wipes off the mistake with the vegetable-oil hand lotion the Commander had previously given her, then tries again. The eyeliner, along with the lipstick she rubs onto her cheekbones as blusher, completes her disguise, transforming her from a chaste Handmaid into a painted woman of the night.

Significance: Transgression and the Recovery of the Self

The eyeliner is more than a prop; it is a tool of transgression. By applying it, Offred knowingly breaks the regime's most intimate rules about female appearance and behavior. The act is a small rebellion, a reclaiming of her body as something that can be adorned and seen, rather than merely a vessel for reproduction. The Commander holds a silver-backed hand mirror for her as she works—Serena Joy's mirror, borrowed without permission—underscoring the illicit, conspiratorial nature of the moment. Yet the experience is also disorienting. Offred feels "stupid" and later, catching her reflection in the hotel bathroom, sees "a travesty, in bad makeup and someone else's clothes, used glitz." The eyeliner does not restore her former self; it creates a grotesque parody of it, highlighting the distance between the woman she once was and the role she is forced to play.

Contrast with the Regime's Aesthetic

The eyeliner episode stands in stark contrast to the daily rituals of Gilead. Handmaids are denied mirrors—the one in Offred's room has been replaced by an oblong of tin—and any product that might soften or beautify the skin. Offred secretly hoards butter to rub on her face and hands, a private ceremony of self-care that she learned at the Red Center. "As long as we do this, butter our skin to keep it soft, we can believe that we will some day get out, that we will be touched again, in love or desire," she reflects. The eyeliner, like the butter, is a fragile, illicit means of preserving a sense of personhood and hope. But where the butter is a humble, hidden act of maintenance, the eyeliner is a bold, public performance of defiance, one that carries far greater risk. It is a glimpse of the freedom that has been lost, and a measure of how far Offred has fallen from the woman who once chose her own clothes and makeup.

The Eyeliner as a Marker of the Commander's Power

The Commander's provision of the eyeliner also reveals the dynamics of their relationship. He treats the makeup as a gift, a token of his ability to grant forbidden pleasures. He watches Offred apply it with the same "air of looking in through the bars" that he displays when she uses the hand lotion. For him, the eyeliner is part of a game, a way to make Offred complicit in his transgressions and to demonstrate his mastery over the rules. For Offred, it is a reminder of her dependency and the precariousness of her position. She is a "whim" to him, and the eyeliner, like the feather costume, is a prop in his fantasy. Yet she accepts it, because even a degraded form of freedom is better than none. The eyeliner, then, is a complex object: a tool of rebellion, a symbol of loss, and a token of a corrupt bargain.