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Chapter 44
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
Jade looks out the window of the jet and sees the countryside and tall, pretty buildings below. Shortly after, they land in Gilead. Aunt Beatrice walks her down the steps between rows of black-uniformed men, whom the Pearl Girl warns Jade not to look at. Jade feels more vulnerable under their stares than ever before in her life, and she is surprised when they suddenly all salute. Aunt Beatrice tells Jade that this is to honor her, since Beatrice’s mission is complete—she has brought back a “Pearl.”
Aside from Aunt Lydia and her statue, the uniformed men saluting Aunt Beatrice is the only instance of Gilead men honoring women for anything. The fact that they will only honor a woman for trafficking another young woman into Gilead to incorporate them into the terrible and oppressive regime suggests that they only value women when they help them to prey on other women.
Themes
They are taken by car into the city and to a large building. Beatrice tells Jade they must immediately go to the Thanks Giving ceremony, where all the new Pearls will be welcomed. In a large hall with many other Pearl Girls and recent converts, all around Jade’s age, Lydia stands and makes a speech, welcoming the Pearl Girls home and congratulating them on their successful missions. Beatrice presents Jade to Lydia, who places her hand on Jade’s head and blesses them both. Jade thinks the whole affair is “weird as fuck.”
The Pearl Girls’ mission to bring back young new converts, which are apparently always women, is disturbing enough. It is more disturbing that Lydia herself presides over it, again depicting her as a complex character who both opposes a predatory system yet also participates in it at the highest levels. Nicole’s inner thought suggests that she will struggle to suppress her own derision and maintain her cover as a new convert.
Themes
