The Testaments
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''The Testaments'' is a 2019 novel by
Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...
. It is the sequel to ''
The Handmaid's Tale ''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 ...
'' (1985). 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 (Hannah), a young woman living in Gilead; and Daisy, a young woman living in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
. ''The Testaments'' was a joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, alongside
Bernardine Evaristo Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo (born 28 May 1959) is an English author and academic. Her novel ''Girl, Woman, Other'' jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's ''The Testaments'', making her the first Black woman to win ...
's novel '' Girl, Woman, Other''. It was also voted 'Best Fiction' novel in the
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2019, winning by over 50,000 votes. Streaming service
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, 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 the Republic of Gilead, a theonomic state. 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
Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...
John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English Catholic theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet. He was previously an Anglican priest and after his conversion became a cardinal. He was an ...
'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
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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 Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...
. 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 Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
'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 Gileadean 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 Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
. Nicole is tasked with carrying the files inside a
microdot A microdot is text or an image substantially reduced in size to prevent detection by unintended recipients. Microdots are normally circular and around in diameter but can be made into different shapes and sizes and made from various materials s ...
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 The Penobscot River (Abenaki: ''Pαnawάhpskewtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 22, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Maine. Including the river's W ...
. 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 Morphine, formerly also called morphia, is an opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin produced by drying the latex of opium poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as an analgesic (pain medication). There are ...
overdose before she can be questioned and executed. The novel concludes with a metafictional
epilogue An epilogue or epilog (from Greek ἐπίλογος ''epílogos'', "conclusion" from ἐπί ''epi'', "in addition" and λόγος ''logos'', "word") is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the ...
, 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.


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. She takes an interest in human rights violations in neighboring Gilead.


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. 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 Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...
and
incest Incest ( ) is sexual intercourse, sex between kinship, close relatives, for example a brother, sister, or parent. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by lineag ...
. When she becomes a Supplicant, she takes the name Aunt Immortelle.


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 in 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 ''Literary Hub'' or ''LitHub'' is a daily literary website that was launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and '' Electric Literatur ...
'', the book received a "positive" consensus, based on fifty-seven critic reviews: nineteen "rave", twenty-two "positive", fourteen "mixed", and two "pan". In '' Books in the Media'', the book was scored 3.93 out of 5 stars, based on twenty-four critic reviews. On the November/December 2019 issue of '' Bookmarks'', the book was scored a four out of five. The magazine's critical summary reads: "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'')." Serena Davies of ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' 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". 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. In an interview by Martha Teichner, for ''
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'', Atwood insisted the novel contains "tons of hope—lots and lots of hope" when questioned about the premise.
Michiko Kakutani is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life and family Kakutani, a Japanese Americ ...
, writing for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', 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''. The book was shortlisted for the 2020 Fiction Book of the Year in the
British Book Awards The British Book Awards or Nibbies are literary awards for the best UK writers and their works, administered by ''The Bookseller''. The awards have had several previous names, owners and sponsors since being launched in 1990, including the Na ...
.


Relationship to television series

Atwood wrote ''The Testaments'' in coordination with the ongoing ''
The Handmaid's Tale ''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 ...
'' 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. Bruce Miller, producer of the television series, has acknowledged the new novel's storyline will be taken into account as the series continues. 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. The role of Agnes is read by
Bryce Dallas Howard Bryce Dallas Howard (born March 2, 1981) is an American actress and director. The eldest child of filmmaker Ron Howard, she studied acting at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. While portraying Characters in As You Like It#Rosali ...
, while Daisy/Nicole is read by
Mae Whitman Mae Margaret Whitman (born June 9, 1988) is an American actor. She began her career as a child actor, starring in the films '' When a Man Loves a Woman'' (1994), '' One Fine Day'' (1996), ''Independence Day'' (1996), and '' Hope Floats'' (1998), ...
. Tantoo Cardinal and
Derek Jacobi Sir Derek George Jacobi (; born 22 October 1938) is an English actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen as well as for his work at the Royal National Theatre, he has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a BAFTA Award, two ...
read the roles of scholars in the epilogue. The audiobook also features Atwood herself. In a separate adaption, in 2019,
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
serialized the novel in 15 quarter-hour episodes.


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Testaments, The 2019 Canadian novels 2019 science fiction novels Canadian science fiction novels Canadian speculative fiction novels Dystopian novels Novels by Margaret Atwood Sequel novels McClelland & Stewart books Novels set in fictional countries Novels set in Toronto Booker Prize–winning works The Handmaid's Tale Novels adapted into radio programs