Secateurs

The secateurs appear in the Rubies Premarital Preparatory school, where Aunt Lise teaches flower arrangement to young women of good family who are studying to be married. The tool is a standard piece of equipment for the French-style symmetrical formal vases that the girls learn to create with contrasting but complementary textures. But for Becka, a thin girl with large luminous eyes who has been promised in marriage to a Commander's son she finds repulsive, the secateurs become an instrument of escape.

Becka's Suicide Attempt

On the fourth day of French-style flower-arranging, while the class is working on symmetrical formal vases, Becka slashes her left wrist with the secateurs. The cut is not fatally deep, but a great deal of blood comes out, ruining the white Shasta daisies. Becka is taken to the hospital, and her expression during the act—a ferocity Agnes has never seen in her before—suggests a momentary transformation into a much wilder person. By the time the paramedics arrive, Becka looks serene. She says goodbye to Agnes, who does not know how to answer.

The Secateurs as a Recurring Threat

After Becka's attempt, the secateurs remain in Agnes's mind as a possible means of escape from her own impending marriage to Commander Judd. Agnes considers using the secateurs from Paula's garden shed, but the shed is locked. The memory of Becka's fierce expression when she slashed her wrist haunts Agnes: Becka had been truly prepared to die, and Agnes knows she does not have that same resolve. The secateurs thus represent a form of resistance that Agnes cannot bring herself to employ.

Narrative Significance

The secateurs function as a concrete object that crystallizes the horror of Gilead's marriage system for young women. Becka's use of the tool is not a random act of despair but a calculated response to a life she finds unbearable. The secateurs, intended for the harmless domestic art of flower arrangement, are repurposed as a weapon of self-destruction, revealing the violence that underlies the regime's seemingly gentle feminine pursuits. The tool's reappearance in Agnes's thoughts underscores the limited options available to girls who refuse the roles assigned to them: they can either submit, become Aunts, or die.