116 pages • 3 hours read
The Testaments
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BetaPart 15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 15: “Fox and Cat”
Chapter 41 Summary: “The Ardua Hall Holograph”
One day, while Aunt Lydia secretly listens, Agnes asks Becka what had happened to her to make her so set against marriage. Becka reveals that her father, Dr. Grove, had sexually assaulted her from the time she was four years old. Aunt Lydia had known about Dr. Grove’s molestation of girls, but since the testimony of females holds so little value in Gilead, she had not attempted to bring it out publicly. Dr. Grove has the confidence of the Commanders and considers himself safe, but Aunt Lydia wants to see him punished.
Aunt Lydia invites Aunt Elizabeth for tea for a confidential talk. Aunt Elizabeth is intrigued, expecting gossip, but instead Aunt Lydia asks what animal she would be if she were an animal: a fox or a cat. This question comes from Aesop’s Fables. A fox and a cat are discussing how they would evade hunters. The fox has an elaborate set of tricks to wear out the hunters and their dogs, while the cat only knows how to climb a tree. When hunters arrive on the scene, the fox tries all its tricks, but in the end, the hunters kill it. The cat simply climbs a tree and safely watches all the activity. Aunt Lydia wonders which tactic is better, to work hard to outsmart the foe or sit back and watch the foe outsmart itself.
Aunt Elizabeth muses that she is more a cat. Aunt Lydia says that she had thought of her as such, but now needs her to become a fox. She tells Aunt Elizabeth that Aunt Vidala has been conspiring against her by planting eggs and oranges under the statue, to incriminate Aunt Elizabeth of heresy. Aunt Lydia promises to protect Aunt Elizabeth, though she asks for a favor in return. Though it will be a risk, Aunt Lydia asks Aunt Elizabeth to bear false witness.
Part 15 Analysis
This chapter demonstrates more of Aunt Lydia’s constant cunning and the palace intrigue that goes on at Ardua Hall. Through her covert surveillance system, Aunt Lydia can eavesdrop on even whispered conversations in Ardua Hall, which allows her to gather intelligence on the powerful. Aunt Lydia never knows when she might need information, as in the pressure cooker of Gilead society, no one is immune from the threat of blackmail.
This time, however, Aunt Lydia hears information that her dormant, but still animated, sense of justice finds intolerable. She has known for some time that Dr. Grove is a pedophile and that he molests young patients, but she considered him off-limits because female testimonies carry little weight and he has a high status. When she hears the extent to which Dr. Grove assaulted his own daughter, Aunt Lydia decides that she cannot let the crime pass unpunished: “The upshot was that Becka had decided to offer up this silent suffering of hers as a sacrifice to God. I am not sure what God thought of this, but it did not do the trick for me” (253). The reader again sees Aunt Lydia’s true feelings about religiosity, tucked away in her private thoughts. It’s as though, as she’s perfected her information time bomb that will destroy Gilead, the former judge Lydia is starting to come back to Aunt Lydia.
Aunt Lydia incorporates her plan to penalize Dr. Grove into her other plan to pit Aunt Elizabeth against Aunt Vidala. Aunt Elizabeth is seen as above reproach and therefore an excellent ally in this plan. Thus, Aunt Lydia introduces the story of the fox and the cat.. Aunt Lydia sees herself as both fox and cat; when Aunt Vidala develops an intricate plot to rid herself of both Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Lydia, and Aunt Lydia catches her out simply by watching from her camera, her “tree,” it suggests that Aunt Lydia is more of a cat and Vidala a fox. In Aunt Lydia’s plot to punish Dr. Grove, she’s more of a fox, developing “tricks” like allies.
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