Tabitha Character Analysis in The Testaments

Tabitha is Agnes’s legal mother who dies when Agnes is young, apparently due to illness, though it’s later implied that her husband Commander Kyle murdered her. Although Agnes initially believes that Tabitha is her biological mother, she learns shortly after Tabitha’s death that Tabitha adopted Agnes after Agnes was retrieved from her true mother, an escaped Handmaid, and brought back to Gilead as a toddler. This is difficult news for Agnes to cope with, but even so, Agnes and Tabitha truly loved each other while Tabitha was alive.

Tabitha Character Timeline in The Testaments

The timeline below shows where the character Tabitha appears in The Testaments. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...Although Agnes does not think she is pretty, she feels especially “chosen” since her mother Tabitha often tells her a story about finding her in a castle, choosing her from a... (full context)

Agnes is six or seven years old. She lives with her mother, Tabitha, and her father, Commander Kyle, though she rarely interacts with her father. She has a... (full context)

...dress and white hat to cover her face, and her stomach is swollen and pregnant. Tabitha says their dollhouse does not need a Handmaid, since they already have Agnes, and Agnes... (full context)

In the evenings, Tabitha prays with Agnes that angels will stand guard around her bed and protect her soul.... (full context)

Agnes is eight or nine years old. She spends less time with Tabitha, because Tabitha is always in her room “resting” now. Agnes sits in the kitchen with... (full context)

...girl, and sometimes one must do things that they abhor. Agnes cries and runs to Tabitha’s room, crawling into the bed with her. As Tabitha tries to comfort her, Agnes asked... (full context)

Tabitha is dying, but nobody tells Agnes. She finds out this information from Shunammite, a girl... (full context)

...does not have the wherewithal to stand up to her. When Shunammite tells Agnes that Tabitha is dying during lunch, Agnes does not believe her, and claims she only has a... (full context)

...lied to Shunammite. Zilla apologizes and tells Agnes that they’d all assumed she knew that Tabitha was dying already, that her parents would’ve told her, though Commander Kyle is almost never... (full context)

Agnes admits that it is still difficult and painful to recount Tabitha’s death. After she died, they hold a funeral, for which Agnes received a black dress... (full context)

Several months later, Kyle marries Paula and gives her Tabitha’s wedding ring, even though it should have gone to Agnes. Paula and Kyle largely ignore... (full context)

...her friend. However, one day Shunammite gloatingly tells Agnes that she’s discovered a new secret: Tabitha was not Agnes’s real mother. According to Shunammite, Agnes’s real mother was a Handmaid, a... (full context)

...However, Zilla remarks that if one’s mother is the person who loves them most, then Tabitha is still her rightful mother. Agnes asks what happened to her birthmother, if she escaped... (full context)

...Meanwhile, her hatred for Paula grows, especially as her stepmother quietly purges every relic of Tabitha’s life from their house. (full context)

...be taken from her just as she was taken from her own mother, even though Tabitha truly did love her. (full context)

...his Handmaid, but by Paula, who was having an affair with Commander Kyle even while Tabitha was alive. Paula framed the Handmaid for the murder, and the Handmaid was tortured for... (full context)

...to force her to let Agnes join Ardua Hall. She wonders if this means that Tabitha was murdered as well. Agnes keeps all this to herself, even from Becka, so as... (full context)