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
Lydia installs two remote surveillance cameras in the foot of her statue, hoping to capture evidence of Elizabeth placing offerings for the statue and plotting against her. Instead, the cameras capture footage of Vidala secretly putting eggs and oranges in front of the statue and dropping a handkerchief embroidered to look as if it belongs to Lydia herself. This is a great surprise to Lydia, though not an unwelcome one. Now she has evidence of Vidala’s treachery and can turn Elizabeth easily against her, and perhaps Helena as well, in case one of them needs to be framed and sacrificed. Lydia is at the “turning point” but she does not intend to back down. Soon, she will tell Commander Judd that Baby Nicole is back in Gilead, within her grasp.
As she often does, Lydia deftly plays both sides in the conflict, occupying a confusing space as neither a good nor evil character. Her happy surprise at the fact that Vidala is trying to frame her demonstrates her understanding of the way that damning knowledge can gift power over someone else. Meanwhile, her intention to report Nicole’s return to Judd appears on the surface like a betrayal of Nicole and Mayday. However, recognizing how elaborate and long-running Lydia’s schemes are, her motivation is uncertain.
Themes
To explain, Lydia goes back to an even that occurred nine years before. Aunt Lise entered her office, wringing her hands, and told Lydia about Becka’s attempted suicide with the secateurs. Although they’d tried counseling and threats of death, Becka insisted that she would try to kill herself again if they forced her to marry anyone at all. Lydia asked if it was bearing children that Becka objected to, but Lise insisted that Becka liked children, but that she had a nearly phobic fear of penises. Lydia reflected that perhaps their education system placed too much emphasis on the threats that pensises represent, though obviously they could not teach “the theoretical delights of sex” either. Lise mentioned that Becka claimed a “higher calling,” meaning she wanted to be made an Aunt. Lydia decided that this was better than Becka killing herself, so allowed for a probationary trial as an Aunt.
Becka’s phobic fear of penises and sexuality, as well as Lydia’s recognition that Gilead cannot teach women about the pleasure of sex, suggests that Gilead’s attempts to sexually repress women have long-lasting consequences, leaving deep marks on young women’s psyches. Once again, Lydia’s allowance for Becka to escape marriage by becoming an Aunt suggests that she is intentionally saving Becka from the marital system that she herself had a hand in shaping as one of the Founders, once again portraying Lydia as a complex, morally-ambiguous character.
Themes
Aunt Lydia brought Becka in for an interview and explained the path she would take as an Aunt: six months on probation, and then the Founders would make their decision, at which point Becka would be a Supplicant Aunt until she served her mission as a Pearl Girl. Becka eagerly accepted all of this. Lydia asked Becka if she was ever sexually abused, but Becka insisted she did not want to speak of it. Lydia did not push this but assured Becka that she would be safe in Ardua Hall and that justice would be served, eventually, even if only behind the scenes. Lydia sent Becka with Lise to receive her uniform and begin her reading lessons. Becka was overwhelmed with gratitude and Lydia noted that that would be useful in the future. She had rescued many such girls through Ardua Hall.
Once again, Lydia’s private admission in her narrative that she has been rescuing girls by making them Aunts suggests that she has been both supporting Gilead and subverting its ends for many years. Along with establishing Lydia as a cunning and complicated character, this also suggests that Ardua Hall, the domain of Aunts and thus the domain of women, is a sort of sanctuary for women who cannot live within Gilead’s oppressive, narrowly-gendered regime, and who desire to think and act and speak as the free and intelligent individuals they are.
Themes
