25 Discussion Questions for The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (With Analysis) | Chapterly Blog
Margaret Atwood's The Testaments picks up the story of Gilead fifteen years after The Handmaid's Tale and reveals how totalitarian systems are dismantled from within. The Testaments discussion questions push readers to examine not just what happens to oppressive regimes, but who brings them down and at what cost. Whether you are in a book club that loved the original novel, a college seminar on dystopian literature, or a reading group exploring feminist fiction, these questions are designed for substantive debate. Published in 2019 and winner of the Booker Prize, The Testaments is told through three narrators: Aunt Lydia, who has risen to power within Gilead's oppressive system; Agnes, who grew up inside Gilead; and Daisy, who grew up in Canada. Their stories converge as each plays a role in undermining the regime from different positions. The novel asks who we become under oppression and what it takes to resist. These 25 questions are organized by theme. The Testaments Discussion Questions: Power, Complicity, and Survival Atwood's sequel shifts the central question from "how do people endure oppression?" to "how do people dismantle it from within?" The Testaments is preoccupied with the moral cost of complicity — particularly Aunt Lydia's decades-long...