- The wives themselves have little control/are beneath the Commanders in the social hierarchy; caring for the garden illustrates that Serena (and the other wives') responsibility/power is limited

- The ‘Commander’s Wife’ cannot conceive a child herself, yet the garden acts a means for her to nurture something of her own
 Tulips act as a symbol (motif) for the Handmaids - flowers possess the reproductive organs of a plant – represent the fertility that many women lack. --> ‘The tulips are red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they have been cut and are beginning to heal there.’ – pg 22

- ‘There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard, though silently’ pg 161 --> indicates that Handmaids such as Offred, though silenced, possess the ability/desire to subvert/dissent

- ‘She [Serena] was snipping off the seedpods with a pair of shears…she was aiming, positioning the blades of the shears, then cutting with a convulsive jerk of the hands' pg 161 --> illustrates the resentment Serena feels towards Offred who has the ability to conceive, unlike her