The Testamements

 I always thought the Handmaiden's Tale needed a sequel. It ended in a way that didn't call for a revisiting of the world or a continuation of the story. Maybe you wanted to know what happened to the narrator after the end, but that is almost always the case in a good novel unless the author ensures everyone is dead at the end.

The Testaments was undoubtedly the result of renewed interest in the book and Gilead created by a hit TV show. That is not to say that I think Atwood was looking to make money out of the deal or that the producer of the show pushed her to write the book. I do think that Atwood had likely moved past revisiting Gilead until the TV show, and Trumpworld, made it relevant, and a possible reality, to a young generation of women.

The novel also once again proves that Atwood is a master story teller. The Testaments is both a sequel and an expansion of the original. By using the same framing device, one shared character, and two successors to the original Handmaid, she manages to bind the two together in structure, place, and time. However, by using the triple narratives to tell the story, Atwood manages to expand the reader's appreciation of how easily Gilead could arise, how easily its residents are willing to accept its "horrors", and how, by its mundanity, the normal world is still a much better place.

Aunt Lydia is the most interesting of the three narrators. She lives in the space between protagonist and antagonist. It is through her that we learn the history of how Gilead came to be. Her position within the society lends credence to her narrative about her position in the formation of the social order. Her apparent complicity in the downfall of Gilead lend credence to her protestations that she did the best she could to make things as right as possible. However, all of her narration could just be a revisionist tale to obscure her guilt and complicity in the horrors she has help bring into being. What is clear is that she is a smart and ruthless woman who knows how to get what she wants. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Lydia is the possibility that in someway she is both saint and sinner. She may have been playing the long game and trying to make the best of a terrible situation, but she is also always looking to maximize her position and prestige.

The two girls, while less interesting, are more sympathetic characters. They are born into the situation and have less ability to choose their paths. Largely this is due to age; they lack the maturity and experience to see their choices.

Of the two Agnes has more agency. She knows her full story and understands the rules of the game in which she is trapped. She has seen the options open to her and does her best to position herself for success. She is not quite as jaded or self-serving as Lydia, but she is willing to do what is needed to get ahead. Agnes, while carried along on an unrelenting current, makes decisions to steer her ship so that she may one day have power and agency.

Daisy, on the other hand, is picked up by the current and smashed into the rocks. She goes from a life that a contemporary reader recognizes of normal teenaged angst to a life where she is both a symbol and a chess piece in a game she'd rather not play. While neither girl has good choices: Agnes can be a Commanders Wife and live a life of relative privilege or be an Aunt and live a life of relative comfort; Daisy can either live a life of constant fear and running or risk death in the hopes of possibly regaining a normal life. That she choses the hero's path cannot not be seen as heroic.

I think one of Atwood's greatest strengths is that she is unsparing. Her characters are flawed, weak, and selfish. Yet, they are also doing they best they can to scrape out a decent life, and possibly, make the world a little better.

That Gilead falls as easily as it was created is not surprising. It was a house of cards built by flawed, weak, self-serving people. The makers of Gilead, including Aunt Lydia, are different from the rest of us only in their cruelty and their lack of empathy.

Once their humanity is exposed for all to see, the rest of the sharks swarm for the kill. Once their depravity is exposed, the rest of the powerful class must quickly move to prove that they are beneficent before the masses recognize their own flaws.