The Testaments

The world of Gilead demonstrates how an authoritarian society is set up to promote social control of its citizens. When the citizens of a country are accustomed to the possession of civil rights, mandated and protected by its legal system, the removal of those rights must happen in a brutal and systematic way. As seen in Aunt Lydia’s story, the former elites of the previous society must be either coopted or murdered. The leaders must establish a new set of elites, with new sets of rules and rituals. To maintain control of women in the new Gilead regime, the leaders separate groups by function. Thus, Wives are the privileged consorts of the Commanders, Handmaids will produce children if the Wives do not, and Marthas will function as the domestic help, to elevate the status of Wives. Over these classes of women, Aunts will function as the institutional authority and source of ruthless discipline. The Commanders are thus free to concentrate on the consolidation of their own power and the waging of war to maintain or grow the nation’s borders. To give lesser males a function and purpose, the leaders establish classes of Guardians, Eyes, and Angels.

This system of governance and social control remains ripe for destruction from within and without.