Epigraph 3
‘In the desert there is no sign that says, “Thou shalt not eat stones.”’ - Sufi Proverb
This last epigraph is perhaps the most puzzling of the three. In response to a tweet about her novel in 2017, Margaret Atwood posted a clarification of the Sufi proverb, writing: There are no Thou Shalt Nots about things no one wants to do anyway. They're about things desirable, at least to some.
So, the Sufi proverb is a statement about the nature of prohibitions. Firstly, it seems obvious that the proverb is saying that there are no laws forbidding people from doing what is inherently undesirable, what no-one wants to do. However, perhaps because of the double negative, the line clearly implies more. When Atwood writes ‘They're about things desirable, at least to some’ it is important to see that ‘they’re’ stands in for ‘Thou Shalt Nots’ and ‘some’ is crucial. Who are the ‘some’ who believe that what is desirable should be prohibited? Totalitarian regimes, religious authorities, and repressive systems fear human desires because they threaten control. To maintain absolute power and rigid obedience, such regimes systematically repress natural human impulses, decreeing that ‘thou shalt not’ engage in love, sexuality, independent thought and creative expression. Thus, desire becomes dangerous because it carries the potential for freedom, self-definition, and rebellion, those things that a totalitarian regime must crush in order to survive: they fear what they can't completely regulate.
In an article in the Guardian , Atwood makes explicit the link between the Sufi proverb and totalitarian regimes. She writes about the Sufi proverb that it states ‘a simple human truth: we don't prohibit things that nobody would ever want to do anyway, since all prohibitions are founded upon a denial of our desires’. In other words, prohibitions are a sign that regimes fear the power of natural human instincts, which must be suppressed if control is to be absolute. Elsewhere in the article, Atwood notes how totalitarian states systematically seek to regulate behaviour, not because natural desires are dangerous in themselves, but because they are dangerous to systems of power. Her first-hand experience visiting East Berlin, Poland, and Czechoslovakia — states in which even minor personal freedoms were restricted — directly informed the world she created in The Handmaid’s Tale. Even when finishing the novel in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, she experienced subtler but still potent forms of social control, recalling being told: "Don't ride a bicycle... They'll think you're a communist and run you off the road." In both overt totalitarian regimes and seemingly free societies, Atwood observed the same fundamental dynamic captured by the Sufi proverb: wherever desire threatens obedience, systems of power respond with prohibition and repression.
So, where there are prohibitions and rules, we should look at what they are trying to repress. In the novel, the enforced compliance, authoritarianism and oppression is aimed at ensuring total obedience to the Gileadean regime, and absolute adherence to its rules. To do this the regime has to obliterate people’s humanity, erase their identity and destroy empathy, compassion and love. All the rules in Gilead are designed at some level to prohibit love in all its forms. This is perfectly encapsulated in the exchange between Offred and the Commander, when the Commander asks: “What did we overlook? Love, I said.” There are ‘signs’: rules and regulations, systems and structures, everywhere in Gilead that are aimed at prohibiting love.
In order to understand more thoroughly the ideas encapsulated in the Sufi proverb, it is worth reading 1984 by George Orwell. Atwood has acknowledged the influence that this seminal dystopian text has had on her novel. Another text worth knowing is The Garden of Love by William Blake. It is also worth thinking about the presentation of Gilead as a theocrasy in the light of this poem.
Here is the poem in full:
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
In all three texts: the Sufi proverb, Blake’s The Garden of Love, and the totalitarian world of 1984, we see the same systemic repression of natural human impulses by tyrannical regimes who are ‘binding with briars, my joys and desires’. In oppressive systems, desire becomes an act of rebellion because it threatens the control that regimes seek to impose over every aspect of human life. In Gilead, passion and desire are treated as attacks against the regime. Which is why when Offred fantasises about Nick, she describes an encounter with him as dangerously explosive: "It would be like shouting, it would be like shooting someone". Love and intimacy, which should be natural human impulses, are so heavily policed that they become radical acts of defiance.
Winston, the protagonist of 1984, realises that even feeling sexual desire is a political act against the Party. He states ‘The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime.’ The Party tries to control people so completely that even private emotions and instincts are designated ‘thou shalt nots’: love, attraction, pleasure, are dangerous. Love binds individuals to each other (not to Big Brother), and passion asserts personal identity and freedom; therefore, the Party works to destroy it.
In all three texts, natural human desires — for love, connection, pleasure, freedom — are not simply discouraged but actively demonised, because they offer individuals an inner life beyond the regime’s control. Ultimately, each writer warns that systems of total power must suppress desire because it contains the potential for resistance, humanity, and hope. Therefore, desire becomes a revolutionary force because it has been prohibited; it is an explosive assertion of human freedom in a system built on repression. The Sufi proverb used at the start of The Handmaid’s Tale: ‘In the desert there is no sign that says, “Thou shalt not eat stones”’ suggests that authoritarian rules only triumph when natural instincts are forcibly repressed. When regimes must erect endless ‘Thou shalt nots,’ they reveal their fear that natural human desires — for love, joy, and freedom — are stronger than any system of control.
There are other interpretations of the Sufi proverb. Of particular note is Nancy V. Workman’s 2008 essay Sufi Mysticism in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale which offers a detailed and comprehensive consideration of this epigraph, arguing that its significance has been overlooked by critics.
Workman's interpretation:
o The proverb critiques authoritarian, institutional religion (specifically Christianity in Gilead) which unnecessarily imposes oppressive rules.
o "Stones" metaphorically represent non-nourishing, lifeless doctrines offered by Gilead's theocracy.
o True spirituality comes from inward, personal experience, not from imposed, external dogma.
Furthermore, Workman claims that Offred embodies Sufi values:
o She seeks personal spiritual truth instead of blind acceptance of societal dogma.
o Her inward reflection during the Night chapters, language games, and critical thinking all mirror the Sufi path of private, mystical experience. This point is further developed by Karen Stein , in her essay ‘Margaret Atwood’s Modest proposal’ (1996) where she considers Workman’s analysis of the Sufi proverb, Stein particularly identifies Workman’s argument that ‘punning, multiple meanings and paradox (discursive strategies central to The Handmaid's Tale) are central components of Sufi writings’.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/14/margaret-atwood-road-to-ustopia
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/view/8103/1882529379
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