The Testaments

The Testaments is Margaret Atwood’s 2019 sequel to her dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. The Testaments chronicles resistance efforts against the ultra-religious authoritarian nation, Gilead, through the perspectives of two teenage half-sisters and the leader of Gilead’s women’s sphere.

The Testaments begins 15 years after the conclusion of The Handmaid’s Tale, in which the Handmaid Offred escaped Gilead with her baby, Nicole. Gileadean society continues under the oppressive thumb of the ultra-religious Commanders and Aunts. In this society, women are treated as objects, Handmaids are used as sex slaves to produce children for Commanders, Marthas are servants to the upper-class, Econofamilies are the impoverished lower-class, Pearl Girls are the missionaries of Gilead, and Aunts are the religious leaders of the women’s sphere. Gilead upholds its standards using their mercenaries, the Angels, and their spies, the Eyes.

Agnes shares her life story as the privileged daughter of a Commander in Gilead. Following the death of her adoptive mother, Agnes’s stepmother plots to marry her off when she is barely 13. Aided by influential adults, Agnes manages to escape marriage and enters training to be an Aunt. While in the training facility, Agnes learns that she is Offred’s daughter and participates in a plot to overthrow Gilead.

Daisy is a teenager in Toronto, Canada, when Angels murder her adoptive parents in a car bombing. The Mayday operatives, an anti-Gilead force, reveal that Daisy is actually Baby Nicole. With the help of Mayday’s contact, Aunt Lydia, Nicole infiltrates Gilead as a Pearl Girl, receives information that will destroy Gilead, then smuggles it across the border with the help of her sister, Agnes. Both girls reunite with their mother at the end of the novel.

Aunt Lydia chronicles in her memoir how she became the leader of the Aunts, and how Gilead overthrew the United States. Balancing outer piety with manipulation, Aunt Lydia secures leadership of “the women’s sphere,” where she gathers intel that will destroy Gilead. After giving the intel to Nicole, she takes a fatal dose of morphine before her enemies can find her.