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Chapter 39
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
Paula, furious about Agnes’s move to join the Aunts, visits Ardua Hall to convince her to change her mind. During their conversation, Paula insists that the Aunts will require Commander Kyle’s permission to nullify the marriage arrangement, and he’ll never give it. However, Lydia enters and speaks to Paula privately. Agnes cannot hear what she says, but when Lydia walks out, Paula looks ill and proceeds to leave wordlessly. Kyle gives his permission that afternoon.
Lydia’s total control over Paula through some secret piece of information demonstrates the great power that damning knowledge can grant one person over another and serves as an isolated example of that manner in which Lydia controls and manipulates other powerful people.
Themes
The next step for Agnes is to be interviewed by each of the Founders. Becka gives her advice on how to handle each Aunt during her successive interviews. Elizabeth wants to see that Agnes is dedicated to “the greater good,” so Agnes shows it, even expressing sympathy for Judd’s disappointment at the marriage being called off. Helena simply wants their interview over quickly, since Lydia has already made up her mind and Helena must follow suit. Vidala is difficult to convince, since she’s never liked Agnes and thinks she is “shirking” her duty as a woman. However, when Agnes praises Vidala’s character and says she aspires to have even a fraction of her virtue, Vidala decides she has shown thee “appropriate meekness” and consents as well.
Agnes’s interviews encapsulate each of the three Aunts’ personalities, which is helpful in understanding their characters since both Elizabeth and Helena are often present but rarely seen taking any action of their own within the story. Elizabeth is revealed as an idealist, and Helena as a weak-willed survivor who simply follows whoever is strongest. Vidala is aptly described as an egotistical power-monger who desires to see others capitulate themselves to her, which is notable since it defies traditional expectations of women in Gilead, even though Vidala herself claims to be committed to these standards.
Themes
Agnes interviews with Aunt Lydia last, and she is terrified that the powerful woman might change her mind. However, Lydia congratulates her on making her way to Ardua Hall. She announces that Shunammite will marry Judd in her place, and although Agnes worries for Shunammite, she knows that the girl envied her future marriage to Judd, and she will have 10 times as much wealth and benefits with Judd than with her other potential husband. Agnes thanks Lydia profusely for helping her, but Lydia responds that someday Agnes will be called on to help Lydia as well, since that is how life works in Ardua Hall.
Although Shunammite is not a particularly sympathetic character, but Lydia’s decision still evokes sympathy in the reader—assigning Shunammite to marry Commander Judd, with full knowledge that Judd murders his wives, is a death sentence for Shunammite. This depicts Lydia as both generous and altruistic for rescuing Becka and Agnes, and yet stunningly ruthless at times. Lydia’s character, caught in a web of machinations, ploys, and basic survival, demonstrates the morally ambiguous position of power within an unjust regime, even if one has good intentions.
Themes
