Picture of Blue Irises

The Picture of Blue Irises is a watercolor print that hangs on the wall above the chair in Offred's room in the Commander's house. It is framed but has no glass, a detail that immediately signals the regime's fear of self-harm: the glass has been removed because it could be broken and used as a cutting edge. The picture is one of the few decorative objects allowed in the room, and Offred wonders whether every Handmaid has the same print, the same chair, the same white curtains—government issue, as if individuality itself has been standardized along with the red dress and the white wings. The flowers themselves are still permitted, a small concession to beauty in a world that has stripped away nearly all ornament. The iris, with its upright petals and deep blue color, offers a rare visual pleasure, but the absence of glass also reminds Offred that this room is designed to prevent escape, not only through locked windows and shatterproof panes but through the removal of any object that could become a weapon against the self. The picture thus functions as both a comfort and a warning: it is a fragment of the old world's aesthetic, but its very framing—or lack of it—reveals the regime's obsessive control over the means of death as well as life.

The Picture as a Marker of Regulated Domesticity

The watercolor print is part of a larger system of standardized interiors that the Gileadean regime imposes on its Handmaids. Offred's room contains a chair, a table, a lamp, a bed with a flocked white spread, and the picture of blue irises—all items that could belong to a college guest room or a rooming house for "ladies in reduced circumstances," which is exactly what the Handmaids have become. The picture is not chosen by Offred; it is issued to her, like the red shoes and the red gloves that lie on the bed. The regime's preference for folk art and "traditional values" is evident in the choice of subject: flowers, a safe, non-political image that evokes a pastoral, pre-industrial past. Yet the picture's very safety is a form of control, a reminder that even aesthetic pleasure is rationed and approved. Offred notes that the print is "Government issue," and the thought underscores how thoroughly the state manages every aspect of her environment, from the clothes on her body to the image on her wall.

The Picture and the Body: Butter as Resistance

The picture of blue irises is indirectly linked to the small acts of bodily care that Offred performs to preserve her sense of self. In the absence of hand lotion or face cream—banned by the Wives as vanities—the Handmaids have learned to use butter to keep their skin soft. Offred rubs butter over her face and hands, working it into the skin, knowing it will go rancid and make her smell like old cheese. This practice, which she learned at the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center, is a private ceremony, a way of believing that she will someday be touched again in love or desire. The picture on the wall, with its blue irises, stands in silent contrast to this greasy, organic ritual: it represents the official, sterile beauty that the regime permits, while the butter represents the hidden, embodied beauty that the Handmaids create for themselves. The picture is a public decoration; the butter is a private defiance.

The Picture as a Site of Memory and Longing

For Offred, the picture of blue irises is not merely a decoration but a trigger for memory and desire. She sits in the chair beneath it, hands folded, watching the sunlight fall on the floor, and thinks about the past. The picture's subject—flowers—connects her to the garden she once had, to the smell of turned earth and the dry rustle of seeds through her fingers. The irises also remind her of the Commander's Wife's garden, where Serena Joy kneels on a cushion, snipping off seedpods with shears. In that garden, the irises rise "beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash." The picture on the wall is a static, safe version of that living, subversive garden, where "buried things burst upwards, wordlessly, into the light." The picture thus becomes a placeholder for everything Offred has lost: not just flowers, but the freedom to tend them, to touch them, to be touched by them.

The Picture and the Regime's Aesthetic of Control

The picture of blue irises exemplifies the Gileadean regime's strategy of aesthetic regulation. By permitting certain images—flowers, traditional scenes—while banning others—photographs of family, secular art, pornography—the state creates a visual environment that reinforces its ideology of purity and submission. The picture is a "return to traditional values," as Aunt Lydia might say, a sanitized version of beauty that carries no risk of subversion. Yet Offred's relationship to the picture is not entirely passive. She studies it, wonders about its origin, and uses it as a point of reference for her own memories and desires. In this way, the picture becomes a site of quiet resistance: it is the regime's object, but Offred fills it with her own meanings. The blue irises are not just flowers; they are a reminder of a world where women could choose their own decorations, their own clothes, their own lives. The picture, for all its officialdom, cannot be emptied of that memory.