The Handmaid's Tale
"I'm sorry there is so much pain in this story. I'm sorry it's in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force. But there I nothing I can do to change it.
I've tried to put some of the good things in as well. Flowers, for instance, because where would we be without them?
Nevertheless it hurts me to tell it over, over again. Once was enough: wasn't once enough for me this time? But I keep on going with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story, because after all I want you to hear it, as I will hear yours too if I ever get the chance, if I meet you or if you escape, in the future or in heaven or in prison or underground, some other place. What they have in common is that they're not here. By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are."(Atwood 267)
Among the reasons I find this passage to be so moving, so powerful, is because it demonstrates the power Offred wields through her words. While her story is terrible and macabre, she is mighty for telling it. She has the ability to impact the person who listens. After all she has been stripped of, she remains unconquerable as long as their is someone to hear her story. I also believe it is this power that gave Offred strength to continue her struggle, that someone will one day hear her, know her.
The first two paragraphs resonate strongly within me that in life there is pain, there is horror, there is evil, but we just have to see the beauty too. We cannot let ourselves be sucked into the monster our world has become.
The passage basically means that even though her story is terrible, it needs to be heard. Just by her relaying it, reliving it, she has created hope, she has created a listener. No matter what comes to her, she will still be alive. She will live in her story, impacting and affecting listeners along the way.
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