Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is irrefutably a feminist staple. More than 30 years later, we finally return to the world of Gilead in The Testaments, set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale. But does The Testaments measure up to its legacy?
I hope Margaret Atwood never sees this, but The Testaments was disappointing.
The first section of this review is for people who haven't read it yet, but the second part will contain spoilers.
I'll start with things I did like about The Testaments. The book switches between the POV’s of three very different characters-an anti-Gilead activist growing up in Canada, the daughter of a wealthy Commander, and one of the formidable founding Aunts. While Handmaid’s Tale deals with isolation as it takes a dive into the mind of a Handmaid who was ripped away from her family, Testaments is a story of sisterhood and friendship.
Atwood’s writing style seems to have changed, for better or for worse. Handmaid’s Tale is brooding and introspective, but Testaments reads faster being a longer book. Her prose has adapted to today’s less patient readers, but the trade off is that we get a more shallow story. I think that this difference is a matter of opinion and not of inherent quality.
We get a deeper look into the world of Gilead and its corruption through the powerful Aunt Lydia, which is interesting. Through the perspective of the Canadian, we learn about post-U.S. North America (Texas and California have each declared independence) and the anti-Gilead movement. However, the world stops feeling as real as it did in The Handmaid’s Tale. The characters don’t show the same depth either-we just don’t get to know them like we got to know Offred.
Overall, the book feels shallow and cheaply constructed compared to the highs and lows of Handmaid’s Tale- it's good, but not as good. Maybe I’m just nostalgic. I hope that if you choose to read this book, you can still get something out of it.
NEXT SECTION CONTAINS SPOILERS
The Testaments honors the duality of womanhood. I like the contrast of Becka, who selflessly sacrifices herself for Nicole and Agnes, with the ruthless Aunt Lydia, who betrays her friends (and honestly all women) to step up as a founding Aunt and create the framework that keeps the women of Gilead in their places. Aunt Lydia is not afraid to use her power to manipulate those around her. She doesn’t see the value of sisterhood, only the long-term goal- to gain as much control as possible and to ultimately bring down Gilead. Becka and Agnes show the selfless bond that Aunt Lydia was never able to form with anyone- they are willing to betray the system and the God they were raised to obey for each other and for Nicole.
The book deals with gender in a different way than Handmaid’s Tale did. Testaments is about women oppressing other women through the roles they choose to play. Women in Agnes’ social class have two options- to become a Wife and bear the children of a Commander or to become an Aunt. It’s a choice between self-preservation and self-sacrifice, between power and submission. The only way out of the subservient life of a Wife is to align themselves with the oppressor and train other women to become servants of Gilead.
However, at the end of the book when Agnes and Nicole wash up on the shores of Canada, I felt like we were scammed. We ultimately learn about the fate of Gilead in the epilogue, a transcript of a lecture decades in the future, but I still felt like the author took the easy way out instead of actually tying up the loose ends. The one thing that makes sense about this sudden ending is that Handmaid’s Tale also ends in a cliff hanger. Maybe the ending of Testaments is meant to be reminiscent of the uncertain waters Handmaid’s Tale left us in.
While Testaments doesn’t compare to the original feminist classic, I would still overall recommend it, especially if you’re looking for a way to pass the time while stuck at home. It provides a cross section of the corruption of a fascist patriarchal state. It examines the contrast between the lives of three women in different social classes, but also the commonalities they share. There are definitely parts where I was on the edge of my seat (although by the climax of the novel, the suspense was lost). It’s unfortunate that we still see our world reflected in the story of Gilead, but I’m glad we have books like this to serve as cautionary tales.
Laney Meldrum, she/her, WGS Program Assistant