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The brown robes that the Sons of Jacob force cooperating women to wear represent submission and female oppression in Gilead. The robes are a sign of the women’s penitence, their admission of guilt for being women professionals and not respecting their narrow, gendered roles. The robes are made of a material similar to sackcloth, which is a reference to the sackcloth many figures in the biblical Old Testament periodically wear to symbolize their penitence for sinning against God and their desire to repent. When Lydia is arrested by the Sons of Jacob and brought to the stadium with the other professional women, she sees women participating in the executions of other women. These female executioners are dressed in the brown sackcloth robes, which symbolizes their acquiescence to the new regime and acceptance of its gender roles—even at the cost of their fellow women’s lives. After Lydia is tortured and forced to cooperate, she is left the same brown robe to wear, which she may don as a sign of her cooperation and penitence for trying to resist—for being modern and professional rather than the meek, subordinate woman that the Sons of Jacob demand. However, since donning the brown robe allows Lydia and its other wearers to live, the brown robe is also a mark of a survivor.
Brown Robes Quotes in The Testaments
The The Testaments quotes below all refer to the symbol of Brown Robes. 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 68
Quotes
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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Brown Robes Symbol Timeline in The Testaments
The timeline below shows where the symbol Brown Robes appears in The Testaments. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 24: The Ardua Hall Holograph
...three of the firing squad were women, wearing not business attire like the rest but brown robe s that looked to be made of something like sackcloth. They shot the blindfolded women...
(full context)
...returned, and her situation began to dawn on her. Someone had laid out the same brown sackcloth robe she’d seen the female shooters in the stadium wear. Although she was horrified, she put...
(full context)
Chapter 29: The Ardua Hall Holograph
...Thank Tank. She is standing in the stadium as one of the shooters, wearing the brown sackcloth robe . She is aiming a rifle at a line of former friends and colleagues, Handmaids,...
(full context)
Lydia was taken from the hotel back to meet with Commander Judd, now wearing the brown robe . He asked if she had found “enlightenment” in her time in the Thank Tank...
(full context)
...wearing the Aunts’ uniform and was clearly indoctrinated, but Elizabeth and Helena were in the brown robe s like Lydia. Commander Judd explained that although many would see them as traitors for...
(full context)
Chapter 68: The Ardua Hall Holograph
...the Mayday plot. Lydia has a brief flashback of when she stood in the stadium, brown-robed, and raised her rifle. She is sure there was a bullet in her rifle, despite...
(full context)
