NOTE: This page is about the novel version of the character. For the film adaptation, see Aunt Lydia, and for the television series adaptation, see Lydia Clements.
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| “ | In my own present day I am a legend, alive but more than alive, dead but more than dead. I'm a framed head that hangs at the backs of classrooms, of the girls exalted enough to have classrooms: grimly smiling, silently admonishing. I'm a bugaboo used by the Marthas to frighten small children - "If you don't behave yourself, Aunt Lydia will come and get you!" I'm also a model of moral perfection to be emulated - "What would Aunt Lydia want you to do?" - and a judge and arbiter in the misty inquisition of the imagination - "What would Aunt Lydia have to say about that?" | „ |
| ~ Aunt Lydia coming to terns with who she has become in Gilead. |
Aunt Lydia is the deuteragonist of the The Handmaid's Tale novel duology.
She is a member of the government in Gilead, a totalitarian regime that took down the United States and enslaved women to be "Handmaids", breeding slaves that are forced to bear children for Commanders and their wives. While she may seem brutal and sadistic, Lydia secretly despises Gilead and is the main protagonist of the duology's second novel, The Testaments, having worked against Gilead for many years while documenting her account of being an Aunt.
Personality[]
On the surface, Lydia seems to be a cruel religious fanatic, torturing and brainwashing Handmaid's into following Gilead's strict rules. Her brainwashing is extremely effective, with her words often echoing in Offred's mind throughout her time as a Handmaid. Despite this, Lydia secretly despises Gilead, having originally being a Supreme Court judge who was stripped of her rights and tortured until she was willing to be an Aunt. During her time as an Aunt, she kept records of her efforts to passingly work against the regime for several years, giving information to Mayday, the resistance group against Gilead, all while still mistreating the Handmaids. Throughout The Testaments, Lydia remarks on what she has become in Gilead, being greatly feared and having effectively committed war crimes even though her efforts have done so much to help the resistance movement. Ultimately she decides to commit suicide, content with the fact that she won't be forgiven for all the pain she caused but still managed to help destroy Gilead once and for all.
Biography[]
Before the Gilead takeover of the United States, Lydia was a judge of the supreme court, who was imprisoned with other women in a stadium during the establishment of Gilead. After enduring weeks of squalid conditions and solitary confinement, she and a small group of other women are handpicked by Commander Judd and Aunt Vidala, a pre-existing supporter of Gilead, to join the Aunts, an elite group of women tasked with creating and overseeing the laws and uniforms governing Gilead's women. The Aunts use Ardua Hall as their headquarters and enjoy certain privileges that include reading "forbidden" texts, such as Cardinal John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua. In secret, Aunt Lydia despises Gilead and becomes a mole supplying critical information to the Mayday resistance organization. It seems that earlier in the novel, she has been one of the aunts in charge of Offred's facility, along with Aunt Elizabeth, and she seems to be one of the most instructive of the aunts.
Throughout the novel, Offred is constantly reminded of her teachings and advice. At one point in the novel, she reveals to Janine how Moria has escaped from the facility. She seems to expect Janine to tell the other handmaids, and they in turn, would no better than to make the same mistake and try to escape. She eventually seems to leave the facility, and Offred does not see her again for a few years it seems. The next time Offred sees her, it is at a Salvaging execution event, in which Aunt Lydia overseers the execution, and displays the convicted. This is the last time in the novel that she is seen. Through these actions, it can be assumed that Aunt Lydia intends to use fear to educate and control the handmaids. Aunt Lydia helps Mayday resistance force to gather incriminated data to manipulate the Commanders within Gilead government to engage in brutal civil war, the military eventually fed up with Gillead government and instigates a coup combines with the uprising of Mayday and the remnant of the US government, eventually causing the collapse of Gilead. Realizing the restored US government will execute her for war crimes, despite being the mole for Mayday, Aunt Lydia commits suicide by overdosing on morphine.
Quotes[]
| “ | There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it. | „ |
| ~ Offred recalling how Lydia would tell them that protection was more important than freedom. |
| “ | I’ve learned to do without a lot of things. If you have a lot of things, said Aunt Lydia, you get too attached to this material world and you forget about spiritual values. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed are the meek. She didn’t go on to say anything about inheriting the earth. | „ |
| ~ Offred describing how Lydia would criticize material possession while also pointing out her hypocrisy of leaving out biblical verses. |
| “ | It’s a risk you’re taking, said Aunt Lydia, but you are the shock troops, you will march out in advance, into the dangerous territory. The greater the risk the greater the glory. She clasped her hands, radiant with our phony courage. | „ |
| ~ Offred explaing how Lydia would downplay the chances that a newborn will not survive. |
| “ | I've become swollen with power, true, but also nebulous with it - formless, shape-shifting. I am everywhere and nowhere: even in the minds of Commanders I cast an unsettling shadow. How can I regain myself? How to shrink back to my normal size, the size of an ordinary woman? | „ |
| ~ Lydia describing the power she has obtained in Gilead. |
| “ | But perhaps it is too late for that. You take the first step, and to save yourselves from the consequences, you take the next one. In times like ours, there are only two directions: up or plummet. | „ |
| ~ Lydia questioning if redemption is possible. |
Trivia[]
- Aunt Lydia's narration in The Testaments is discovered years later in the form of a written manuscript by Professor Pieixoto and is known as The Ardua Hall Holograph.
- Aunt Lydia's character is the most different between the film and Hulu series adaptations, with her being both a villain and a hero in the original duology, and two very different types of villains between the two adaptations.
External Links[]
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 Villains
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Republic of Gilead Wives Aunts Other | ||