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Symbols
Baby Nicole works as a dual symbol: for the Mayday movement she represents female liberation, while for the people of Gilead, she represents the threat of the outside world. Since Baby Nicole was smuggled out of Gilead by her Handmaid mother and Mayday operatives, Canada’s anti-Gilead movement views Baby Nicole as a symbol of liberation for women in Gilead, pasting her infant likeness on protest posters even 15 years after she was smuggled out and disappeared. Gilead, on the other hand, views the smuggling of Nicole as a theft and kidnapping—her legal father was a Commander and thus has the legal right to her in the eyes of the state. Even for women in Gilead, Baby Nicole thus represents the evils of the outside world, who mercilessly stole a baby child from her rightful family. Like the protest movement, Gilead still refers to her as Baby Nicole, even though she has not been a baby for 15 years.
However, in treating her like an icon—calling her Baby Nicole rather than realizing that she is now Nicole the young adult with her own personhood and agency—both sides effectively dehumanize her. This is particularly evident when Daisy learns that she herself is Nicole, the icon she has seen both sides fight over and claim as a symbolic token for themselves. This makes Nicole feel used, handled “like a football” rather than a human being. Baby Nicole the icon thus ultimately represents the manner in which one can dehumanize another by trying to claim them as a symbol for a movement or ideology, rather than regard them as a human being who ought to be free to make their own choices.
Baby Nicole Quotes in The Testaments
The The Testaments quotes below all refer to the symbol of Baby Nicole. 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 8
Quotes
I’d basically disliked Baby Nicole since I’d had to do a paper on her. I’d got a C because I’d said she was being used as a football by both sides, and it would be the greatest happiness of the greatest number just to give her back.
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Chapter 24
Quotes
I did not wish Aunt Sally dead: I simply wished her incoherent; and so it has been. The Margery Kempe Retreat House has a discreet staff.
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Baby Nicole Symbol Timeline in The Testaments
The timeline below shows where the symbol Baby Nicole appears in The Testaments. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 6: The Ardua Hall Holograph
...dye the eggs they will eat for supper. She leads the seasonal prayer, praying for Baby Nicole who was stolen from Gilead and is lost in Canada, and who has become an...
(full context)
Chapter 8
...them, but Melanie is always kind and accepts their brochures. They always carry brochures about Baby Nicole too, demanding her return to Gilead. But Baby Nicole is as much an icon of...
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Chapter 10
...speaking, Gilead refugees (harbored by an organization called SanctuCare) telling their stories, and lots of Baby Nicole posters everywhere. Pearl Girls are there as well, counter-protesting with their own signs and glassy...
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Chapter 23
...explains that she was born in Gilead, though of course she won’t remember. Daisy is Baby Nicole .
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Chapter 24: The Ardua Hall Holograph
...Adrianna in self-defense after Adrianna randomly attacked her. She and Adrianna suspected they had seen Baby Nicole at The Clothes Hound and Sally was about to report this at the Gilead consulate,...
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Chapter 31
...who helped smuggle Nicole out of Gilead years ago, hiking through the Vermont forest with Baby Nicole drugged in a backpack so she wouldn’t cry or scream. That smuggling route is out...
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Chapter 34: The Ardua Hall Holograph
...but she does not intend to back down. Soon, she will tell Commander Judd that Baby Nicole is back in Gilead, within her grasp.
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Chapter 56: Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A
There is another page in Agnes’s file that informs her that she has a sister: Baby Nicole . There is a handwritten note attached that says Nicole is somewhere in Gilead, still...
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Chapter 58: Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A
...notices that Lydia looks older and frailer, which she’d once thought impossible. Lydia reveals that Baby Nicole is in Gilead, and that she is Agnes’s sister. Becka is both thrilled and pained...
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Chapter 59: Ardua Hall Holograph
...she saw Victoria reading her own genealogical file. Agnes’s biological mother is notorious for helping Baby Nicole escape and now works as a Mayday operative. Lydia assures Vidala that Victoria and Immortelle...
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...which Helena also knows to contain dangerous information about Victoria’s mother and the fact that Baby Nicole is Victoria’s half-sister. Lydia assures her that she already knows and says that Vidala may...
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...herself, though Judd seems not to suspect her. However, he feels that they must reveal Baby Nicole to the world sooner than planned as a symbolic show of power. He will marry...
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Chapter 68: The Ardua Hall Holograph
Commander Judd is both enraged and terrified that Baby Nicole has escaped, since his and Lydia’s reputations will be ruined if word gets out, making...
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