Lilies of the Field

Lilies of the Field is a store in the heart of Gilead where Handmaids order the red dresses and white headdresses that define their uniform existence. It stands as a physical monument to the regime's method of overwriting the past: the building was once a movie theater, and its huge wooden sign, shaped like a golden lily, still shows the place where the lettering was painted out, when the authorities decided that even the names of shops were too much temptation for the women. The store's name, drawn from the biblical phrase, now carries only the weight of official piety, stripped of its former commercial identity.

From Cinema to Uniform Shop

Before Gilead, Lilies of the Field was a movie theater frequented by students, known for its annual Humphrey Bogart festival featuring Lauren Bacall and Katharine Hepburn—women on their own, making up their minds. Offred remembers the blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word "undone," and the sense that those women could be undone or not, that they seemed to be able to choose. The theater represented a world of cultural abundance and personal agency, a society that Aunt Lydia later described as "dying of too much choice." Now the building serves a single, utilitarian purpose: outfitting Handmaids in the garments that mark their function. The transition from cinema to dress shop mirrors Gilead's broader project of replacing entertainment and freedom with ritual and control.

The Sign and the Erased Name

The store is identified not by lettering but by a huge wooden sign in the shape of a golden lily. Under the lily, the paint where the name was written has been covered over, a deliberate act of erasure. This anonymizing of the shop is part of a larger policy: places are now known by their signs alone, because even the names of shops were deemed too much temptation. The golden lily, a symbol of purity and biblical reference, becomes a mask for the building's former life. Offred notes that the sign is one of the few visual markers in a landscape where the regime has systematically removed all traces of the pre-Gilead world's commercial and cultural vibrancy.

A Site of Regulation and Memory

For Handmaids, Lilies of the Field is a place of regulation, where they order the prescribed red dresses, white wings, and veils that constitute their uniform. The store is part of the weekly shopping routine, a stop on the permitted circuit of errands. Yet the building also holds a powerful charge of memory. Offred recalls the movies shown there, the Humphrey Bogart festival, and the actresses who embodied a kind of independence. The theater's past lingers as a ghost of the freedom that has been lost. The store thus functions as a site where the regime's control over women's bodies and appearances is enacted, while simultaneously serving as a trigger for Offred's recollections of a world where women could choose their own clothes, their own entertainment, and their own lives.

Narrative Significance

Lilies of the Field encapsulates the central tension of Offred's narrative: the constant presence of the past within the present, and the regime's futile attempt to erase it. The store's transformation from a place of cinematic fantasy and choice to a depot for uniforms is a microcosm of Gilead's project. The golden lily, a symbol of purity, now marks a site of enforced conformity. Yet the memory of what the building once was—the movies, the actresses, the sense of possibility—persists, offering Offred a fragile connection to the world she has lost. The store is a reminder that the regime can paint over names and repurpose buildings, but it cannot entirely extinguish the memories they hold.