Content area

Abstract

The article takes under scrutiny the evolution of the key antagonist from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, namely, Aunt Lydia. In the sequel to her most popular novel, that is, The Testaments, the author boldly rewrote the villainous Aunt as Gilead's undercover agent, forcing the reader to reconsider their own perception and reception of this character retrospectively. Predictably, many critics and fans found the said transformation implausible. Taking The Testaments as a point of departure, the article rereads the original tale, which, astonishingly, discloses a number of equivocal passages that in fact might provide credibility to Atwood's audacious refashioning of Aunt Lydia as a Mayday spy. The article offers a reevaluation of Aunt Lydia's villainy in The Handmaid's Tale through the lens of her undercover identity, revealed in The Testaments. Firstly, it dissects the techniques and ploys the author used in the sequel to breed readers' empathy for hitherto despised Aunt Lydia. It focuses on the overlap between the transformation of her character and the shift from the original novel's criticism of second wave feminism towards the sequel's embrace of the fourth wave. Finally, and most importantly, it discusses a selection of equivocal fragments from The Handmaid's Tale that specifically pertain to Aunt Lydia.

Details

1009240
Title
From Villainess to Gilead's Nemesis: The (Un)easy Rehabilitation of Aunt Lydia
Publication title
Volume
14
Pages
85-103
Number of pages
21
Publication year
2025
Publication date
2025
Section
Articles
Publisher
Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca
Place of publication
Huelva
Country of publication
Spain
Publication subject
e-ISSN
22541179
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
Document type
Journal Article
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2025-01-21
Milestone dates
2025-01-21 (Created); 2024-06-30 (Submitted); 2025-01-22 (Issued); 2025-01-22 (Modified); 2024-08-06 (Accepted)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
21 Jan 2025
ProQuest document ID
3282915138
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/villainess-gileads-nemesis-un-easy-rehabilitation/docview/3282915138/se-2?accountid=208611
Copyright
© 2025. This work is licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2026-01-07
Database
ProQuest One Academic