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
Nicole and Agnes climb aboard the larger ship and are met by Captain Mishimengo, an old friend of Ada’s. Mishimengo explains that they’re smugglers under the pretense of being cod fishermen, and they have good relationships with all the coast guard officials in the area. He shows them where they can sleep below deck, in long metal boxes with sleeping bags in them, and gives them some food. As Nicole falls asleep, she notices that her arm is feeling worse and wonders if she has an infection. The next morning, she feels very ill and bickers with Agnes over whether or not Gilead can truly be saved, or whether it should simply be reduced to rubble, which offends Agnes since it’s still her home.
Nicole and Agnes’s disagreement on whether or not Gilead should be utterly destroyed or hopefully reformed to some better version of itself is only briefly touched on. But Agnes’s argument that Gilead is still her home raises a major point. Although Gilead is depicted as a villainous and oppressive regime, most of the people who live there—or in any such regime—did not ask to live under such oppression and are just trying to survive. This suggests that such a flippant attitude as Nicole’s, that the entire place should be destroyed, is immature and does not account for all the innocent people who would suffer as a result.
Themes
