Following up 1985’s A Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments depicts the last days of Gilead, a dystopian society that has replaced the United States in the near future. Gilead is a theocratic regime, meaning that its government and its religion are intertwined at every level, and the rulers believe that their authority comes from God himself. Thus, the ruthless oppression and terrible violence it inflicts are all done in the name of God, using pieces of the Bible or other religious teachings as its justification. While the totalitarian government’s actions may seem extreme, Atwood draws each brutality from actual historical events, crafting Gilead into a disturbing warning of the possibilities of theocratic governments and the abuse of religious power. While the novel does not argue that all religion is inherently bad, it demonstrates the power and potential of religious abuse already realized throughout history.
Originally established as a “Puritan theocracy,” Gilead’s power structures are justified through particular passages from the Bible, demonstrating how religion can be employed to establish and uphold totalitarian systems. Although very few individuals are allowed to read it, Gilead’s leaders hold the Bible as their source of authority and power—the only Bibles are kept “in the darkness of their locked boxes, glowing with arcane energy,” suggesting that Gilead’s general citizenry ascribe a mythical sense of power to them in their minds. This increases the power of Gilead’s leadership, since they can argue that any dissension is a betrayal of not just Gilead, but God, and thus a threat to the dissenter’s mortal soul. As they preach it, obedience to God is the same as obedience to the government. Aiming to subjugate women, the men of Gilead base their marital systems almost entirely on a brief description of Abraham’s life in the Old Testament, where he he has complete power over his wife, and when she could not bear him a child, has sex with her handmaid as well to produce an offspring. By codifying this one instance into law and creating a class of Handmaids who are forced to bear men’s children, Gilead’s male leaders are able to enforce and justify a regressive view of marriage and gender that benefits themselves at the expense of women. Although Canada exists as a democratic state and opposes all of Gilead’s ideals, Gilead’s leadership indoctrinates its citizens to believe that Canada is morally bankrupt, equating them with Sodom, a city that God smites in the Old Testament as punishment for their wickedness. By teaching and reinforcing the belief that the outside world is sinful and the object of God’s wrath, Gilead’s leadership strengthen their grip over their own citizens, who want to live virtuous lives and thus fear the corruption of the outside world.
However, the novel clearly argues that Gilead’s understanding of the biblical God is misconstrued and that religious hypocrisy is rampant within Gilead’s leadership, suggesting that such a totalitarian regime built on religion is abusing that religion and bastardizing it, rather than embodying it as it was meant to be practiced. The narrative argues that Gilead’s leadership only utilizes some of the Bible and ignores much of it. When Becka, a young woman who is training for a celibate, administrative role called an Aunt, is finally allowed to read the Bible for herself, she discovers that the “Gilead kind of God”—an overwhelming masculine and powerful God—does not fit with the idea of God written about in much of the Bible. Although she cannot admit this publicly, Becka warns her friend Agnes that the Bible “does not say what they say it says” and that after reading the Bible oneself, one can either “believe in Gilead or […] believe in God, but not both,” arguing that Gilead’s oppressive vision of God and the Bible’s description of God are mutually exclusive. Despite the fact that Gilead claims to be a bastion of moral purity, the majority of its leadership are disturbingly criminal and predatory. Many of them murder and bribe others to increase their power, and prominent figures use their power to sexually abuse and even murder children and teenage girls. Although Agnes once believed in Gilead’s righteous cause, as she learns about the widespread and grotesque crimes at the highest levels of government, she realizes that “Gilead is rotten,” suggesting that it is not the bastion of biblical or moral principle that it claims to be.
Although Gilead employs bits of the Bible, Atwood goes out of her way to avoid making Christianity the prime target of the novel’s social commentary, suggesting that though organized religion can be abused and made a vessel of totalitarianism, it is not in itself the root cause of such corruption, but merely a potentially dangerous tool. Along with never explicitly mentioning Christianity itself—rather, Gilead is recognized as a country of “religious fanatics” and its religion is referred to as “the faith of Gilead”—Gilead is violently opposed to other Christian groups such as Catholics, Quakers, and Mormons, placing them in the same camp as secular Canada. This suggests that Atwood is not trying to warn of the evils of Christianity as a whole, but the extremists and abusers of it. This is reinforced by the fact that Becka and Agnes see the evil of Gilead but maintain their faith in the biblical God. Although realizing how corrupt and wretched Gilead is challenges their belief, they both ultimately choose to maintain their religious faith, even after Agnes escapes from Gilead. Although Gilead uses the Bible and certainly parallels aspects of Christian fundamentalism, the narrative’s cautious and nuanced handling of religion suggests that the novel is not condemning religion or even Christianity at large, but warning against its integration into government to justify totalitarian rule, as has been seen numerous times throughout history such as the New England Puritans (enactors of the Salem Witch Trials) in the late 1600s or the Caliphate that ruled the Middle East and territory in Europe, Africa, and Asia for 600 years following the Prophet Muhammad’s death.
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Religious Totalitarianism and Hypocrisy ThemeTracker
Religious Totalitarianism and Hypocrisy Quotes in The Testaments
Hanging from a belt around my waist is a taser. This weapon reminds me of my failings: had I been more effective, I would not have needed such an implement.
I’ve become swollen with power, true, but also nebulous with it—formless, shape-shifting. I am everywhere and nowhere: even in the minds of the Commanders I cast an unsettling shadow. How can I regain myself? How to shrink back to my normal size, the size of an ordinary woman?
I’d basically disliked Baby Nicole since I’d had to do a paper on her. I’d got a C because I’d said she was being used as a football by both sides, and it would be the greatest happiness of the greatest number just to give her back.
I know too much about the leaders—too much dirt—and they are uncertain as to what I may have done with it in the way of documentation. If they string me up, will that dirt somehow be leaked? They might well suspect I’ve taken back up precautions, and they would be right.
To pass the time I berated myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid: I’d believed all that claptrap about life, liberty, democracy, and the rights of the individual I’d soaked up at law school. There were eternal verities and we would always defend them. I’d depended on that as if on a magical charm.
I did not wish Aunt Sally dead: I simply wished her incoherent; and so it has been. The Margery Kempe Retreat House has a discreet staff.
What good is it to throw yourself in front of a steamroller out of moral principles and then be crushed flat like a sock emptied of its foot? Better to fade into the crowd, the piously-praising, unctuous, hate-mongering crowd. Better to hurl rocks than have them hurled at you. Or better for your chances of staying alive.
“Gilead’s not shy about killing,” said Ada. “They’re fanatics.” She said they were supposed to be dedicated to virtuous godly living, but you could believe you were living virtuously and also murder people if you were a fanatic.
But if we were to put too much emphasis on the theoretical delights of sex, the result would almost certainly be curiosity and experimentation, followed by moral degeneracy and public stonings.
Aunt Beatrice ordered in pizza for lunch, which we had with ice cream from the freezer. I said I was surprised that they were eating junk food: wasn’t Gilead against it, especially for women?
“It’s part of our tests as Pearl Girls,” said Aunt Dove. “We’re supposed to sample the fleshpot temptations of the outside world in order to understand them, and then reject them in our hearts.” She took another bite of pizza.
The Angel’s real crime was not [smuggling] the lemons, however: he’d been accused of taking bribes from Mayday and aiding several Handmaids in their successful flight across our various borders. But the Commanders did not want this fact publicized: it would give people ideas. The official line is that there were no corrupt Angels and certainly no fleeing Handmaids; for why would one renounce God’s kingdom to plunge into the flaming pit?
“She wanted to live on her own and work on a farm. Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Vidala said this is what came of reading too early: she’d picked up the wrong ideas at the Hildegard Library, before her mind had been strengthened enough to reject them, and there were a lot o f questionable books that should be destroyed.”
Being able to read and write did not provide answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.
“God isn’t what they say,” [Becka] said. She said you could believe in Gilead or you could believe in God, but not both.
As we went north, the friendliness decreased: there were angry looks, and I had the feeling that our Pearl Girls mission and even the whole Gilead thing was leaking popularity. No one spat at us, but they scowled as if they would like to.
I had a flashback, not for the first time. In my brown sackcloth robe I raised the gun, aimed, shot. A bullet, or no bullet?
A bullet.
