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Chapter 28
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
Lydia has a recurring nightmare about the time after she emerged from the 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, wives, and daughters she has judged. Some of them are mutilated, missing eyes or feet or fingers. When the rifles fire, Lydia feels a bullet go through her lungs.
Lydia’s nightmare suggests she is weighed down with guilt over joining Gilead, which thus seems a betrayal of women, and a condemnation of herself as well. The women she has judged, now mutilated, suggest that these mutilations were punishments, for which Lydia feels additional guilt.
Themes
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 and she said that she had. He ran through a file of her past life: professional career, several lovers, one abortion, one divorce. All of these were capital offenses for women now, punishable retroactively, but Judd would pass over them if Lydia agreed to work with their regime. Lydia unemotionally agreed, but Judd told her she would have to prove her new devotion.
All of the crimes that Commander Judd lists off are again fairly common and accepted occurrences in modern society, all of which offer modern women additional degrees of freedom and independence. This again suggests that the Sons of Jacob are primarily concerned with controlling and subjugating women, rather than adhering to a particular religious ideology.
Themes
Lydia was made part of a firing squad, executing yet another group of women. Anita was among those being shot, and Lydia wondered why she chose to die rather than have blood on her hands, though perhaps she simply wasn’t “considered useful.”
Lydia’s view that cooperation with the unjust system is better than death directly contradicts not only Anita’s willingness to die, but especially Becka’s conviction that she will die rather than lose her ability to choose, making them an inverse of each other.
Themes
Lydia sat in the boardroom once again, this time with Helena, Elizabeth, and Vidala. Vidala was already wearing the Aunts’ uniform and was clearly indoctrinated, but Elizabeth and Helena were in the brown robes like Lydia. Commander Judd explained that although many would see them as traitors for overthrowing the government, they were establishing a new order built on God’s decrees, without the societal instability brought on by women having careers, being independence, and neglecting their duty to have families.
Once again, although Judd claims to be building a new regime built on God’s laws and strictures, he blames societal instability not on breaking God’s laws, but on women gaining increased freedoms and independence. This again suggests that while Gilead is certainly a theocracy enforced by dogmatic religion, its chief aim is subjugating and controlling women.
Themes
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The three women, plus Vidala, were there to use their experience dealing with women to devise the “womanly sphere” of society, since the men did not understand them. They would be given advantages and power over women, though Vidala would act as their spiritual instructor. Lydia, already taking the leading role within the group, stated that if they were to do their work well, they needed independence from men and full control over their domain, free rein to operate as they saw fit. Vidala was wary of this, but Commander Judd accepted her proposition, stating that he did not want to be burdened with the “petty details of the female sphere.” Thus, Gilead was born.
Judd’s dependence on women to build and operate his new regime, along with his willing admission that he and his peers do not understand women, is both ironic and hypocritical. His contradiction points out the absolute falsehood of the premise that men are naturally more intelligent and more capable than women, and thus the only ones fit for running society or holding professional careers, especially since Judd allows the Aunts to operate independently.
Themes
The Founders, as they would come to be called, kept the pretense of unity and teamwork, but immediately began vying for power. Vidala assumed she would be the “natural leader” but was immediately usurped by Lydia, setting them up as opponents. Helena and Elizabeth were both weaker, broken by the Thank Tank and the horror of what they were taking part in. Judd regarded Lydia as the group’s head and took credit for any ideas she presented that he saw as successful, causing him to be lauded by his male colleagues for his great work. Although part of Lydia hated what she was building, another part of her was oddly proud of the structure and the order and the limitations they overcame. “Things are never simple,” and it seemed better to survive than to hold to one’s principles and be obliterated.
Once again, the fact that Judd receives adulation from his male colleagues for ideas and plans that Lydia and her team of women devises is ironic. However, it also suggests that either Judd and his men fully understand that women are not truly mentally inferior but choose to propagate the myth so as to increase their own power and control, or that they honestly believe in this inferiority and lack even the self-awareness to realize that their male-dominated, woman-hating regime is entirely dependent on women’s intellect and intuition.
Themes
As Lydia’s power and influence grew, Judd even asked for her forgiveness for the harshness with which she was treated. He tried to ease her conscience by telling her that during the firing squad, her rifle contained a blank instead of a round, so she didn’t actually kill anyone. Lydia suspected that Commander Judd was beginning to fear her.
The fact that Judd defers to Lydia and tries to ease her conscience suggests that her power is growing far faster than he ever anticipated. Lydia’s rise in the ranks demonstrates the vast amount of power that that the right knowledge can grant, even in an oppressive environment like Gilead.
Themes
Back in Gilead, in the present, Lydia returns her manuscript to its hiding place and makes her way to the café for a cup of milk. Vidala accosts her on the way, seeking an audience, and Lydia invites her to join her. Over drinks, Vidala expresses her concern that individuals are leaving food offerings in front of Lydia’s statue, and that this practice borders on heretical cult worship. Lydia says she will consider this, but Vidala continues that it is Aunt Elizabeth who is doing so, possibly as part of a larger scheme to discredit Lydia by claiming she is amassing followers. Lydia thanks Vidala and wonders if perhaps Vidala is coming to her side, rather than opposing her as she always does. In any case it is a welcome opportunity to thin out her opponents.
The in-fighting and power contests between the Aunts and Commanders is typical of any authoritarian regime built on oppressive power and control throughout history. As is often the case, the more power that Lydia gathers for herself, the greater of a threat she represents for others. Thus, she consequently becomes a greater target for political attack, demonstrating the complicated power struggles that occur in such regimes. Such constant in-fighting suggests that any such authoritarian regime will ultimately destroy itself as its members consume each other in their quest for more power.
Themes
