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Chapter 71
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 some opening remarks, Professor James Darcy Pieixoto gives a keynote address at the Thirteenth Symposium on Gileadean Studies in Maine in June 2197 on “daily life in a Puritan theocracy.” The professor gives an overview of the accounts by Aunt Lydia, Agnes, and Nicole, and his reasons for believing that they are all factual—though he admits Aunt Lydia’s could possibly be a fabrication. Pieixoto also reveals that after the document cache was released, Gilead experienced a massive purge of much of its leadership, followed by a military coup, a series of local rebellions, and numerous sabotaging strikes coordinated by Mayday operatives.
Pieixoto is a recurring character from The Handmaid’s Tale, who served the same purpose as does here: provided a far-removed, historical glimpse at the events of the story a century and a half after they took place. Primarily, Pieixoto’s account serves to verify that Gilead did indeed fall over the subsequent decades, implicitly suggesting that any such authoritarian regime will eventually fall; there is hope to be had even in the face of horrific oppression.
Themes
Pieixoto goes on to explain that he believes Agnes and Nicole’s mother to be Offred, the Handmaid who left behind her account of her escape from Gilead decades before, though it’s only conjecture. However, after he and his team of university students tracked down a New Hampshire woman whose great-grandfather told her stories about smuggling women down the river in his boat, they found more clues that lead them to believe that Agnes, Nicole, and Lydia’s accounts are truthful.
Although never mentioned in the story itself, the revelation that Offred, the main character of The Handmaid’s Tale, is also Agnes and Nicole’s biological mother connects that story with its sequel—and confirms to readers of the original story that she did survive and escape Gilead—without letting Offred’s presence dominate the story in any way.
Themes
Lastly, and somewhat mysteriously, they discovered a statue, dated several decades after Gilead fell, of a young woman in a Pearl Girls outfit with two birds on her shoulder, and an engraving at its base dedicating the statue to Becka, Aunt Immortelle, from her sisters Agnes and Nicole, and their respective families, to honor her work and sacrifice along with that of “A.L.”
The statue of Becka, presumably commissioned by Agnes and Nicole, affirms Becka as their own sister, thus offering Becka the chance to belong to their family even though she has passed away. The two birds on her shoulder represent Agnes and Nicole, while the “A.L.” presumably refers to Aunt Lydia, honoring her own sacrifice, though not praising or honoring her to the same extent as Becka.
Themes
