The Testaments is a 2019 novel by Margaret Atwood. It is the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale (1985).[2] The novel is set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale. It is narrated by Aunt Lydia, a character from the previous novel; Agnes, a young woman living in Gilead; and Daisy, a young woman living in Canada.[3]
Streaming service Hulu, which also produces the TV series adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale, announced in 2022 that The Testaments will also become a TV series after The Handmaid's Tale's final season concludes. Actress Ann Dowd will reprise her role as Aunt Lydia.
Plot summary
The novel alternates among the perspectives of three women, presented as portions of a manuscript written by one (the Ardua Hall Holograph) and testimonies by the other two.
Lydia, a divorced judge, is imprisoned with other women in a stadium during the establishment of Gilead. After enduring weeks of squalid conditions, torture, and solitary confinement, culminating in coerced participation in an execution, she and a small group of other women are handpicked by Commander Judd and Vidala, a pre-existing supporter of Gilead, to become Aunts—an elite group of women tasked with creating and overseeing the laws and uniforms governing Gilead's women. The Aunts use Ardua Hall as their headquarters and enjoy certain privileges that include reading "forbidden" texts, such as CardinalJohn Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua. In secret, Aunt Lydia despises Gilead and becomes a mole supplying critical information to the Mayday resistance organization.
Fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, a girl named Agnes Jemima is growing up in Boston as the adopted daughter of Commander Kyle and his wife Tabitha. Agnes has a loving relationship with Tabitha, who later dies of ill health. Agnes and her classmates Becka and Shunammite attend an elite preparatory school for the daughters of Commanders, where they are taught to run a household, but not to become literate. Once widowed, Commander Kyle marries Paula, the widow of a deceased Commander, who despises Agnes. Desiring a child for herself, she acquires a Handmaid, who successfully conceives but later dies giving birth to a son. Agnes is arranged to be married to Commander Judd, now a high-ranking official in charge of the Eyes and surveilling the population of Gilead.
Learning that she is the daughter of a Handmaid, Agnes manages to escape her arranged marriage by becoming a Supplicant, a prospective Aunt. In that pursuit she joins Becka, whose father—Doctor Grove, a prominent dentist—has been sexually abusing her and his other underage female patients for years. Later, Agnes is anonymously provided with files highlighting the corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of Gilead, specifically evidence of adultery between Commander Kyle and Paula and their plots to murder their respective spouses since divorce is prohibited. She also learns that she is the half-sister of "Baby Nicole", a girl who was smuggled out of Gilead to Canada by her Handmaid mother when she was young (and whose return the government of Gilead has been demanding).
Meanwhile, a girl named Daisy—several years younger than Agnes—grows up in Toronto's Queen Street West with her adoptive parents, Neil and Melanie. The couple owns a second-hand clothes shop serving as a front for Mayday to smuggle women out of Gilead. On her 16th birthday, Daisy's adoptive parents are murdered by undercover Gilead operatives. Daisy is spirited into hiding by several Mayday operatives, who reveal that Daisy is actually Nicole. The Mayday operatives enlist her in a mission to infiltrate Gilead to obtain valuable intelligence from their mysterious mole. Nicole poses as a street urchin named Jade to be recruited by the Pearl Girls (Gilead missionaries who lure foreign women to Gilead with the promise of a better life), who take her up and bring her into Gilead.
The disguised Nicole is placed under the care of Agnes and Becka, who are now respectively named Aunts Victoria and Immortelle. Aunt Lydia confirms that "Jade" is Nicole through a tattoo and discloses her true identity and parentage to Agnes and Becka. Revealing herself as Mayday's mole, Aunt Lydia enlists the three young women to smuggle incriminating information about Gilead's elite into Canada. Nicole is tasked with carrying the files inside a microdot on her cruciform tattoo. Agnes and Nicole are to enter Canada disguised as Pearl Girls, with Nicole impersonating Becka. The real Becka, disguised as Jade, is to remain at the Hall and provide a diversion once Nicole is found missing. Forced to hasten their plans when Commander Judd learns about Nicole's presence and intends to marry her, Agnes and Nicole set out early, where they hospitalise Aunt Vidala in the process. They travel by bus and on foot, then by boat along the Penobscot River. This boat takes them to a larger vessel which brings them into Canadian waters. Agnes and Nicole manage to reach Campobello Island by an inflatable and are picked up by a Mayday team. Meanwhile, Aunt Lydia, to buy Agnes and Nicole some more time and to secure her own position at Ardua Hall, tells Aunt Elizabeth that Aunt Vidala accused her of attacking her, expecting Elizabeth to kill Vidala.
Using the information inside Nicole's microdot, the Canadian media leaks scandalous information about Gilead's elite, which leads to a purge that in turn causes a military coup, bringing about the collapse of Gilead and the subsequent restoration of the United States. Agnes and Nicole are reunited with their mother. Becka dies while hiding in a cistern to perpetuate the ruse that "Jade" had run off with a plumber. Lydia, the author of the Ardua Hall Holograph, closes her story by describing her plan to commit suicide with a morphine overdose before she can be questioned and executed.
The novel concludes with a metafictionalepilogue, described as a partial transcript at the Thirteenth Symposium on Gileadean Studies in 2197, presented by Professor James Darcy Pieixoto. He talks about the challenges in verifying the authenticity of the Ardua Hall Holograph and the two witness transcripts by Agnes and Nicole. He also speculates that Agnes and Nicole's Handmaid mother could be Offred of the previous book, though he himself admits to not being sure. He concludes by mentioning the statue that was made commemorating Becka for her actions, its dedication having been attended by Agnes and Nicole, their husbands and children, their mother and their respective fathers.
Characters
Aunt Lydia
The first protagonist, Aunt Lydia, first appeared as an antagonist in The Handmaid's Tale. She chronicles her life in an illicit manuscript, including details of her life before Gilead and how she came to be made an Aunt. She also meditates on the inner workings of Gilead's theonomy, its hypocrisy, and endemic corruption. Lydia's manuscript is later published as the Ardua Hall Holograph, also known as The Testaments. The provenance of the book, like that of Offred's which was published as The Handmaid's Tale, is in question. In The Testaments, Aunt Lydia emerges as a woman who accepts that she must do what is necessary to stay alive, but who quietly tries to work within the system to pursue a measure of justice, fairness, and compassion.[3][6]
Agnes Jemima (Aunt Victoria/Witness 369A)
The second protagonist, Agnes Jemima, is an adoptive child of the high-ranking Commander Kyle and his Wife, Tabitha. She is enrolled in the prestigious Vidala School, where they learn skills such as painting and embroidery - skills thought to be appropriate for the future Wives of Commanders. After Tabitha's death, Commander Kyle marries Paula, who tries to remove Agnes from the family by arranging to marry her off to Commander Judd, who is known to marry young girls and murder them when they grow too old. Agnes escapes this predicament by claiming to have a higher calling and wishing to serve the women of her country. She goes to Ardua Hall as a Supplicant, where she is taught to read and write in preparation to become an Aunt. Here, she takes the name Victoria from the list of approved names for Aunts. She also grows closer to her former classmate Becka, who is another Supplicant studying to become an Aunt.
During the course of her stay at Ardua Hall, she is sent several files from an anonymous source (later revealed to be Aunt Lydia). The files contain details about the various crimes committed by the high-ranking officials of Gilead, thus making Agnes aware of the corruption at the heart of her country. In one such file, she finds out the truth of her parentage—her biological mother was a Handmaid who had escaped to Canada and is currently working for Mayday. She also realizes that her mother had another child, Baby Nicole (later revealed to be Daisy/Jade), who was smuggled to safety in Canada during her infancy.
She meets her half-sister Nicole at Ardua Hall, and then agrees to go with her to Canada in order to transport documents containing information about the leaders of Gilead.
Nicole (Daisy/Jade/Witness 369B)
The third protagonist, Nicole, also known as Daisy, is the daughter of a Handmaid who smuggled her out of Gilead and into Canada as a baby. She lives in Toronto with her adoptive parents Neil and Melanie, who own a second-hand clothing store called the Clothes Hound. Like Agnes, Nicole is raised without any knowledge of her true origins.[6] She takes an interest in human rights violations in neighboring Gilead.[3]
Becka (Aunt Immortelle)
A primary supporting character. Like Agnes, she is the daughter of a Handmaid adopted by a Gileadean family and is being prepared for a high-status marriage.[7] However, her "father" is not a Commander but rather an important figure, a dentist, in the Gileadean upper class. She holds a dark secret of being the victim of rape and incest.[8] When she becomes a Supplicant, she takes the name Aunt Immortelle.[9]
Commander Judd
One of the antagonists in the novel, Commander Judd was first mentioned in The Handmaid's Tale as one of the two possible identities of Offred's Commander. A high-ranking Commander, he was one of the few who orchestrated the coup against the United States and the establishment of Gilead. He recruited Aunt Lydia as an Aunt and tasked her to establish a 'Sphere' for women society, and Aunt Lydia in return reports to him on the Aunts' activities. It is stated in the book he has started to lose favour among the other Commanders, and wishes to marry Nicole to elevate his political standing.
Reception
According to Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on fifty-seven critic reviews with nineteen being "rave" and twenty-two being "positive" and fourteen being "mixed" and two being "pan".[10] In Books in the Media, a site that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (3.93 out of 5) from the site which was based on twenty-four critic reviews.[11] On Bookmarks November/December 2019 issue, a magazine that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (4.0 out of 5) based on critic reviews with a critical summary saying, "Even if it doesn't fully live up to the hype--has there been a bigger literary story this decade?--it's "a fraught tale of subterfuge and spycraft" (USA Today) and a "chance to see your own political life flash in front of your eyes" (Guardian)."[12][13]
Serena Davies of The Daily Telegraph described The Testaments as "a lurid and powerful sequel". She concluded: "Atwood has given us a blockbuster of propulsive, almost breathless narrative, stacked with twists and turns worthy of a Gothic novel".[14] In Literary Review, Sarah Crown commends The Testaments as "politically and emotionally satisfying," although it is, compared to The Handmaid's Tale, lacking in "the richness and the sense of jeopardy" as a result of Atwood's exchange of her earlier novel's ambiguity for clarity.[15]
In an interview by Martha Teichner, for CBS News Sunday Morning, Atwood insisted the novel contains "tons of hope—lots and lots of hope" when questioned about the premise.[16]Michiko Kakutani, writing for The New York Times, contrasts Atwood's thesis of writing one's testimony being an "act of hope", against "the pompous, myopic Gileadean scholars who narrate the satirical epilogues" of both The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments.[17]
The book was shortlisted for the 2020 Fiction Book of the Year in the British Book Awards.[18]
Relationship to television series
Atwood wrote The Testaments in coordination with the ongoing The Handmaid's Tale television series, letting the producers know where she was taking the sequel and affirming certain characters' storylines are not affected by how they appear in The Testaments, since the setting of the television series is several years away from directly portraying events in this novel.[19]Bruce Miller, producer of the television series, has acknowledged the new novel's storyline will be taken into account as the series continues.[20]
In early 2023, Miller stepped down as showrunner of The Handmaid's Tale in order to focus on adapting The Testaments for television.
Formats
The novel was released simultaneously as a book and as an audiobook featuring Ann Dowd reprising and narrating the lead role of Aunt Lydia. Atwood said that Dowd's performance as Aunt Lydia in the TV series helped inspire the new novel.[21] The role of Agnes is read by Bryce Dallas Howard, while Daisy/Nicole is read by Mae Whitman. Tantoo Cardinal and Derek Jacobi read the roles of scholars in the epilogue. The audiobook also features Atwood herself.[22]
In a separate adaption, BBC Radio 4 in 2019 serialized the novel in 15 quarter-hour episodes.[23]
Related Research Articles
Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her best-known work is the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
Potiphar is a figure in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. His name possibly indicates the same figure as Potiphera.
The Handmaid's Tale is a futuristic dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the United States government. Offred is the central character and narrator and one of the "Handmaids": women who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the "Commanders", who are the ruling class in Gilead.
The Blind Assassin is a novel by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2000. The book is set in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga and in Toronto. It is narrated from the present day, referring to previous events that span the twentieth century but mostly the 1930s and 1940s. It is a work of historical fiction with the major events of Canadian history forming an important backdrop, for example, the On-to-Ottawa Trek and a 1934 Communist rally at Maple Leaf Gardens. Greater verisimilitude is given by a series of newspaper articles commenting on events and on the novel's characters from a distance.
Bilhah is a woman mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Genesis 29:29 describes her as Laban's handmaiden (שִׁפְחָה), who was given to Rachel to be her handmaid on Rachel's marriage to Jacob. When Rachel failed to have children, Rachel gave Bilhah to Jacob like a wife to bear him children. Bilhah gave birth to two sons, whom Rachel claimed as her own and named Dan and Naphtali. Genesis 35:22 expressly calls Bilhah Jacob's concubine, a pilegesh. When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob like a wife to bear him children as well.
A testament is a document that the author has sworn to be true. In law it usually means last will and testament.
Oryx and Crake is a 2003 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. She has described the novel as speculative fiction and adventure romance, rather than pure science fiction, because it does not deal with things "we can't yet do or begin to do", yet goes beyond the amount of realism she associates with the novel form. It focuses on a lone character called Snowman, who finds himself in a bleak situation with only creatures called Crakers to keep him company. The reader learns of his past, as a boy called Jimmy, and of genetic experimentation and pharmaceutical engineering that occurred under the purview of Jimmy's peer, Glenn "Crake".
Gilead is the name of three persons and two places in the Bible.
A handmaiden is a personal maid or female servant. Depending on culture or historical period, a handmaiden may be of enslaved status or may be simply an employee. The terms handmaiden and handmaid are synonyms.
Equality Now is a non-governmental organization founded in 1992 to advocate for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls. Equality Now works through public policy channels to create a just world for women and girls. Through a combination of regional partnerships, community mobilization and legal advocacy the organization works to encourage governments to adopt, improve and enforce laws that protect and promote women and girls' rights around the world.
The Handmaid's Tale is a 1990 dystopian film adapted from Canadian author Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel of the same name. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff, the film stars Natasha Richardson (Offred), Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Aidan Quinn (Nick), and Elizabeth McGovern (Moira). The screenplay was written by playwright Harold Pinter. The original music score was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto. The film was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival. It is the first filmed adaptation of the novel, succeeded by the Hulu television series which began streaming in 2017.
The Handmaid's Tale is a 1998 opera by Danish composer Poul Ruders, setting a libretto by Paul Bentley based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood. It has a prologue, a prelude, two acts and an epilogue; there is a build-up in each act leading to a big scene. The work premiered in Copenhagen in 2000 and has since been produced in London, Toronto and elsewhere. Bentley's libretto converts a first-person novel into a third-person opera by means of framing devices. The action takes place in a 22nd-century United States taken over by a right-wing theocracy named Gilead; it starts with a newsreel-like collage: the narrative first frame.
There are many real and fictitious occurrences of concealing objects in a book. Items can be concealed in books in a number of ways. Small items such as a photograph or a note can be hidden in between the pages of the book. Thicker items can be hidden by removing the interior portion of some or all of the pages, creating a book safe or hollowed-out book. Book safes are easy for their owners to recognise, but they do not stand out to a thief or other intruder.
Shannon E. Hengen is a literary critic and professor of Canadian and women's literature at Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada where she formerly served as chairperson for the Department of English. Her specialities include dramatic comedy, aboriginal theatre, contemporary feminist writing, and Margaret Atwood. The theory that most informs her work involves performance, carnival, and gender. The aspect of literary style that most concerns her is voice, and the theme that most intrigues her at present is marriage. She has written or edited numerous books.
A Shulamite is a person from Shulem. The Hebrew Bible identifies as a Shulamite the swarthy, female historical figure in the Song of Songs.
Nellie J. Banks was a 35 GRT cod fishing schooner turned "rum runner", built in 1910. She was one of the last rum runners seized off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1938. Nellie J. Banks was renamed Leona G. Maguire in 1941.
The Handmaid's Tale is an American dystopian television series created by Bruce Miller, based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. The series was ordered by the streaming service Hulu as a straight-to-series order of ten episodes, for which production began in late 2016. The plot features a dystopia following a Second American Civil War wherein a theonomic, totalitarian society subjects fertile women, called "Handmaids", to child-bearing slavery.
"Offred" is the series premiere of the American television drama series The Handmaid's Tale. It was directed by Reed Morano, and written by Bruce Miller, adapting material from the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel The Handmaid's Tale. The episode debuted on the streaming service Hulu on April 26, 2017.
↑ Atwood, Margaret (2019). The Testaments (Audiobooked.). Penguin RandomHouse. Archived from the original on 2020-01-20. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
↑ Atwood, Margaret; Kestelman, Sara; Press, Katherine; Williams, Katrin; Willett, Justine. The Testaments. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 2019-11-06. Retrieved 2019-11-06.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
