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‘The Handmaids Tale’ Episode 4, ‘Milk’: Lady Macbeth and the ‘milk of human kindness’.
Lady Macbeth
Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,
In a strange way it is a nice change to be watching a post-apocalyptic landscape that is not infested with zombies. This is Chicago — or what remains of the city — in America during their struggle to remain free of the religious theocracy of Gilead, that is now, the main stage for ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.
Yet all is not well here either. The Sanctuary which we thought — and hoped — June and Janine were heading too is not much different from some of those post-apocalyptic environments and habitats that have featured in The Walking Dead for eleven seasons and have always dissapointed and led to renewed threat. Seems for the moment that there is little respite from threat or sexual manipulation by men in power even in relatively ‘free’ Chicago.
We should have been prepared for this after the deaths of those handmaids at the crossing and the decision by June to head for Chicago. I assume she is attempting to kill two birds with a single stone: to warn the rebels of an impending surge by Gilead forces and find some allies in her own ‘Mayday’ insurgency.
They were fortunate then that a train was heading to Chicago. But a train carrying milk? I feel that the storyline was invoking a deep metaphor here or even metaphors. Two handmaid’s immersed in milk? Nearly drowning in this fluid? And not a single mention of its significance from June? We remember how they would be forced — if necessary — to give up their own baby to the wife of a Commander, but, could not subsequently breastfeed their own child.
So it must be then, that the signified, is well represented by the words of Lady Macbeth quoted above. In fact throughout The Handmaid’s Tale the tragedy of Macbeth echoes loudly. In particular, the theme of what it means to be a man whether inside Gilead or when outside, as Commander Waterford now finds himself. But what truly resonates in Season 4 — although it has been prepared in the preceeding chapters — is the character of Lady Macbeth transmuted into different female characters…
