The Testaments

“I agree with you that Gilead ought to fade away—there is too much of wrong in it, too much that is false, and too much that is surely contrary to what God intended—but you must permit me some space to mourn the good that will be lost.” 

Agnes, as she first begins sharing her testimony, feels compelled to explain her feelings about Gilead. She knows something about the outside world’s opinion of Gilead, that it is a horrible, despotic hellhole that brutally suppresses its citizens, especially women. For Agnes, it was her home for as long as she could remember. She naturally has good memories as well as bad, and she loved people there. Agnes rescued herself when she escaped from Gilead, but she also felt stripped of everything familiar to her. 

“Aunt Vidala said that best friends led to whispering and plotting and keeping secrets, and plotting and secrets led to disobedience to God, and disobedience led to rebellion, and girls who were rebellious became women who were rebellious, and a rebellious woman was even worse than a rebellious man because rebellious men became traitors, but rebellious women became adulteresses.” 

Agnes’s descriptions of her lessons in the Vidala School provide a comprehensive look at the way in which Aunts indoctrinated privileged girls into correct behavior. The Aunts condemn things as simple and natural as a little girl having a best friend, as they see it as a slippery slope to capital crimes. This is evidence that it is not only Handmaids who believe that the slightest act deviating from prescribed behavior will lead to punishment and ruin. It is also interesting that the worst possible crime of rebellion ascribed to women, worse than treason, is adultery.