Offred returns from the Birth very tired and, out of exhaustion, starts to see strange things. Her wreath looks like a sort of halo, the glowing disc around Saints’ heads (which was an idea borrowed from the god Apollo). She thinks about the hats women used to wear with ridiculous plastic fruit, flowers, and birds around the brim. (The were called Bird of Paradise hats.) Like wearing “paradise” on your head. This goes back to the idea that everything was great in paradise before Eve partook of the fruit and now humanity has to toil everyday under the sun. And before women were forced to have babies and pay for it physically. It’s from Genesis 2. (Another metaphor that can be grasped at here is that sometimes the women of the Victorian era would wear actual stuffed exotic birds, birds of paradise, on their hats. The irony, of course, is that birds are symbols of freedom. Read “A hatful of horror.”) Thinking of fruit in such a way, it seems ironic, on page 129, when the inhabitants, especially Handmaids, say, “Blessed...