116 pages • 3 hours read
Margaret AtwoodThe Testaments
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 27: “Sendoff”
Chapter 71 Summary: “The Ardua Hall Holograph”
Aunt Lydia writes that her time with her hypothetical reader is coming to an end. She pictures her reader as a young woman, settled in a dim corner of a library, laboring over her manuscript. She will hover over this bright young woman, urging her on in her reading. The young woman asks why Aunt Lydia had conducted herself this way and Aunt Lydia rests in the assurance that the young woman will never have to.
Aunt Lydia knows she has come to her end, but so has Gilead. She is sorry she will not see its downfall, as she must dispatch herself before the Eyes come. Aunt Lydia knows that the time has come for a needle of morphine to send her on her way. She hides her writing in its usual place.
Part 27 Analysis
It is natural for Aunt Lydia to wonder who will find her writings and what that person will make of them: “Possibly you will view these pages of mine as a fragile treasure box, to be opened with the utmost care. Possibly you will tear them apart or burn them: that often happens to words” (403). Depending on the time, place, and personal biases of the reader, the reader may enshrine and celebrate Aunt Lydia’s words as a found treasure, or view it as abominable and dangerous, necessitating destruction.
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By Margaret Atwood
