The Testaments

Aunt Gabbana brings in a team to prepare Agnes’s new wardrobe and wedding dress, since Paula says that Agnes cannot be trusted to choose her own appropriate clothing; even though she belongs to a privileged class, Agnes has no rights or self-agency.

One day without warning, Paula enters Agnes’s room with the wardrobe team: Aunt Lorna, Aunt Sara Lee, and Aunt Betty. They tell Agnes to take off her pink school uniform, and the Aunts take her measurements. Several days later, the Aunts return with Agnes’s new outfits. They are spring green, one for spring and summer and another for fall and winter. The color signals a young woman ready for marriage. The clothes are used, since no one wears these outfits for long. Agnes is hopeful because there is an outfit for fall and winter; maybe she will not have to be married soon. Her pink and plum clothes are taken away to be given to another girl, since Gilead is at war and nothing is to be wasted.

Agnes enters the Rubies Premarital Preparatory, the school for girls from good families who are ready to be married. Aunts run the school, but they are more stylish than the Aunts at the Vidala School.

Shunammite and Becka are already attending the school. Both seem older to Agnes, though not much time has passed since the last time she saw them. Shunammite is excited about being married, hoping for a widower of 40 who had not loved his first wife and had no children: “She didn’t want some young jerk who’d never had sex before because that would be uncomfortable—what if he didn’t know where to put his thing?” (161). Shunammite’s reckless speech is more pronounced.

Becka had begged her family not to make her marry yet, but they had received a good offer from the family of a Commander. Becka tearfully tells Agnes that she does not want to marry and have a man crawling over her. She says she hates it. Agnes notes that Becka says that she “hates it,” not that she “would hate it.” Agnes worries that something disgraceful happened to Becka. Becka especially fears the “wet feeling,” but Shunammite laughingly compares French kisses to dogs. Becka retorts that dogs are friendly.

Agnes doesn’t talk with her friends about marriage She thinks about what happened with Dr. Grove, though she cannot talk about it. Her disgust over the incident seems to be nothing compared to Becka’s genuine horror, feeling that she’ll be “crushed:” “She really did believe that […] she would be melted like snow until nothing remained of her” (163). Agnes asks Becka why she doesn’t ask her mother for help, but Becka says that her “real” mother was a Handmaid, and her mother holds that against her. Agnes hugs Becka and tells her that she understands.

Aunt Lise teaches the girls at Rubies about how to be a proper Wife, including manners and customs, how to be a gracious hostess, and how to deal with Marthas and Handmaids. She teaches that everyone in Gilead serves God in their own way and has gifts. Aunt Lise instructs the girls in suitable hobbies like gardening, how to ensure that food in the home is prepared and served properly, proper prayers, and interior decorating, though the husband has final say on all matters. 

By summer, Becka is not doing well. Her wedding is in November and seeing her husband-to-be in person had made her feel ill. She wishes that she could become truly ill disease so that the wedding would have to be postponed. During a flower arrangement class, she slashes her wrists with pruning shears while Agnes watches. The time paramedics take Becka away to the hospital, and she says goodbye to Agnes, who does not know how to respond. Aunt Lise declares that Becka is immature and adds “unlike you girls.”