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Nicole / Daisy / Jade
Becka is Agnes’s friend and Dr. Grove’s daughter. Becka grows up with Agnes, attending the same elite schools. However, the two do not grow close until they are entering puberty, bonding over their shared horror at the idea of being forced to marry an older man. Becka is so stricken by this thought—in part because Dr. Grove sexually abuses her throughout her childhood—and her lack of choice in the matter that she slashes her wrist, choosing to die by her own decision than be passively forced into a marriage. When she survives, Aunt Lydia offers her a place in Ardua Hall as an Aunt instead of being forced into a marriage. Once Agnes arrives in Ardua Hall as well, she and Becka form an intimate, sisterly relationship, especially as they both learn to read and realize that Gilead is built on fraud and rife with corruption. When Lydia explains her plan to send Nicole with her damning information out of Gilead, which will require Becka to effectively sacrifice herself, Becka agrees for the sake of her friends. Although Lydia expects that Becka will survive as long as she can, Becka again decides to proactively take her own life, this time by drowning herself in a water cistern rather than letting herself be arrested and tortured. Although tragic, Becka’s decision to die by suicide rather than be imprisoned in either a cell or an unwanted marriage prioritizes her ability to choose and have agency over her life—and even her death.
Becka / Aunt Immortelle Quotes in The Testaments
The The Testaments quotes below are all either spoken by Becka / Aunt Immortelle or refer to Becka / Aunt Immortelle. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 27
Quotes
[Becka] really did believe that marriage would obliterate her. She would be crushed, she would be nullified, she would be melted like snow until nothing remained of her.
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Chapter 34
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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.
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Chapter 41
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Becka had decided to offer up this silent suffering of hers as a sacrifice to God. I am not sure what God though of this, but it did not do the trick for me. Once a judge, always a judge. I judged, I pronounced the sentence.
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Chapter 48
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“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.”
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Chapter 50
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“God isn’t what they say,” [Becka] said. She said you could believe in Gilead or you could believe in God, but not both.
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Chapter 68
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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.
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Becka / Aunt Immortelle Quotes in The Testaments
The The Testaments quotes below are all either spoken by Becka / Aunt Immortelle or refer to Becka / Aunt Immortelle. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 27
Quotes
[Becka] really did believe that marriage would obliterate her. She would be crushed, she would be nullified, she would be melted like snow until nothing remained of her.
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Chapter 34
Quotes
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.
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Chapter 41
Quotes
Becka had decided to offer up this silent suffering of hers as a sacrifice to God. I am not sure what God though of this, but it did not do the trick for me. Once a judge, always a judge. I judged, I pronounced the sentence.
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Chapter 48
Quotes
“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.”
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Chapter 50
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“God isn’t what they say,” [Becka] said. She said you could believe in Gilead or you could believe in God, but not both.
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Chapter 68
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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.
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