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
Agnes worries about Nicole; she has a steadily rising fever and seems weak. As Agnes climbs the ladder to speak with the captain, she realizes that her jeans make movement and especially climbing far easier than it would’ve been in her Gilead skirt. She can tell Mishimengo is anxious about this plan, since he himself is an escaped citizen of Gilead, and if they’re caught, he’ll be charged with “woman-smuggling” and executed.
Agnes’s realization that she is freer to move and climb in jeans, even though they disgusted her before, works as a brief but poignant symbol for the manner in which strict gender roles can unnecessarily restrict a woman’s ability to act and exert themselves, and freeing oneself of them thus allows a greater degree of freedom and autonomy.
Themes
Nicole’s fever gets worse and she refuses to eat, so Agnes prays for her recovery. However, while she is doing this, Captain Mishimengo tells Agnes that their motor is failing. They’re in Canadian waters but not close to their destination, and once the tide turns, they’ll be swept out to sea. Mishimengo has to drop Agnes and Nicole where they are in an inflatable dinghy, and they have to go now, even though it’s night. As long as they reach the shore, they’ll be safely in Canada.
Although certainly dangerous, Agnes and Nicole have been primarily passive participants in their own escape thus far, shuttled from one person to the next. The need for them to now row themselves to safety suggests that they will take the last leg of their journey into their own hands and succeed or fail by their own efforts and agency.
Themes
They climb down into the inflatable, which Nicole has experience operating but Agnes is useless in, and push off. Nicole uses their small electric motor to guide them toward shore, but the battery shorts and dies. Agnes wonders if they should jump overboard, since it would be better to die than be taken back to Gilead. Nicole frantically tries to teach Agnes how to row with one of the oars, since her arm is too swollen and painful to use both, but Agnes feels overwhelmed by it all.
Once again, although Nicole is younger than Agnes by several years, her capability—which defies Gilead’s gendered expectations and thus argues against any strict gender norms—places her in the role of the older sister rather than the younger. Agnes’s contemplation of suicide to avoid being arrested and imprisoned echoes Becka’s previous suicide attempt to avoid the prison of unwanted wedlock.
Themes
