On August 13, 1961, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) built the Berlin Wall to prevent its citizens from leaving the country (Frederick Taylor, US News.com). For twenty-eight years the Berlin Wall completely separated West Berlin, isolating its population from the rest of the human race. Margaret Atwood represents this real experience in the novel The Handmaid's Tale. Instead of dividing a large population, Atwood proposes the perimeter wall of Harvard University as a divider between himself and the people around them. Through this, Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaids Tale demonstrates how the author uses the physiological object of the wall to reveal the barriers between characters, physically and emotionally. Atwood's description of the Harvard Wall presents an intimidating, daunting, and rigidly regulated setting. We can identify with the frightening image described by Atwood because we can all imagine an ordinary prison cell. The cold brick walls “and the barbed wire along the bottom…are ugly” (31). The walls themselves create an image of fear in the human mind, however, it is what is in or on these walls that scares the mind the most. In prisons we commonly think of punishment as a hidden form of isolation, humiliation and/or torture for those who behave badly. The Harvard Wall publicly displays these methods of punishment through the form of lynching. This is a method used by Atwood to convey the meaning of the wall and the use of fear produced by Gilead society to create a barrier. «But there is blood on one bag, which has seeped through the white cloth. . . This blood smile is what finally fixes the attention” (32). As Atwood clearly states, the men hanging on the wall are meant to scare people… the medium of the paper… the physical object of the wall and the clothes connect to the emotional separation of the multiple characters from the fear and barriers placed by the government of Gilead. The fear and barriers come from the Harvard Wall, an image depicted by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid's Tale. The novel also uses the image of the wall to show the physical and emotional boundaries it creates within its characters. Boundaries are created throughout the novel, through clothing, fear, and people. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986. Print.Collins English Dictionary. London: Collins, 2009. Print.Taylor, Frederick. "The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall." News from the United States. USNews & World Report, 13 November 2008. Web. 02 April. 2012.