Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Testaments, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Religious Totalitarianism and Hypocrisy
Gender Roles
Truth, Knowledge, and Power
Shame, Fear, and Repression
Choice
Summary
Analysis
Garth, a 25-year-old man, comes in dressed all in black. He’s arranged another industrial van, which Ada and Nicole climb into, finding a mattress set up in the back that they sit on. As they drive, Ada tells Nicole that both her real mother and father are deep in hiding, but Ada has been sending pictures of Nicole to her mother throughout her lifetime. Ada was one of the people who helped smuggle Nicole out of Gilead years ago, hiking through the Vermont forest with Baby Nicole drugged in a backpack so she wouldn’t cry or scream. That smuggling route is out of commission now though.
Ada’s admission that she’s been secretly sending Nicole’s mother pictures of her throughout her lifetime, and that she was one of the people involved in smuggling Nicole out of Gilead, means that Ada has been secretly watching over Nicole for the last 15 years. Although Nicole hardly knows Ada, this puts Ada in an almost motherly position in relation to Nicole, especially now that Neil and Melanie are dead.
Themes
They arrive at a carpet wholesaler called Carpitz which has a large, locked-off storage room divided into cubicles in the back, each with a mattress and blanket in it. Nobody in the store except for Garth knows who Nicole is, and they intend to keep it that way. Garth leaves to go find food while Ada and Nicole watch TV. The bombing is still on the news, but there are no charges. Nothing is truly being done about it, which causes Nicole a mixture of anger and sadness. Neil and Melanie weren’t well-known figures, so there is little public pressure. The Gilead embassy is blaming Aunt Adrianna’s death on the Mayday terrorist organization and is pressuring Canada’s government to root them out.
Once again, the fact that Canada is not pressing harder on The Clothes Hound bombing to investigate it or make any charges suggests that they know it was Gilead, but that their hands are tied by their fear of Gilead’s power and reach. Meanwhile, Gilead exerts its own pressure on Canada to help it achieve its own goals by uprooting Mayday, demonstrating the extent of Gilead’s authoritarian power.
Themes
