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Chapter 49
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
After reading “elementary texts” for four years, Agnes is finally allowed to read the Bible. Becka has been reading it for years already, but those who are allowed access to scripture are strictly forbidden from discussing what they read with anyone else. However, before Agnes starts to read, Becka warns her that the Bible doesn’t say what Gilead says it does. Agnes discovers that in stories like the Concubine Cut into 12 Pieces, the truth of it is not noble like the Aunts said, but horrific. As Agnes reads and discovers the contradictions of what she was taught and what she reads, she feels as if she may lose her faith, which frightens her. She tells Becka of this fear, and Becka agrees, and claims that a person can either “believe in Gilead or […] believe in God, but not both.”
Not only is Agnes not allowed to read the Bible until living with the Aunts for four years, but Becka, given earlier access, is forbidden from discussing it, suggesting that Gilead abuses and distorts much of what the Bible says, rather than embodying it. The long delay suggests that Agnes must be thoroughly indoctrinated by Gilead’s teaching and invested in the regime’s purpose, which further suggests that the inconsistency between the actual Bible and Gilead’s rendering of it represents a threat to Gilead’s control.
Themes
