I'm glad my cursor was in the wrong spot for the last sentence, because I was whining.
Previous entry. Leads me to consider a discussion about "The Handmaid's Tale," one that I would not have considered although I knew of its truth in my inner, unconscious self. While I was reading, I might have even unravelled the truths, if I had allowed myself to really think. It's like these rusty cogs are moving, unbeknownst to me, as I write. Slowly it starts to seep, although not the juicy, sweet knowledge that I know is in there, it's closer. More like orange juice. Something sour but with potential.
How an individual's life can just be discarded into the grand scheme of history. Be made insignificant?
That history changes and repeats in cycles. An individual's story matters greatly and yet doesn't matter at all, just fades into history. Which is intellectually comforting and emotionally devastating.
The fact that history can be compressed and viewed by later society (as we do in school textbooks - I felt the resounding parallel to reading a textbook or taking a history class there) makes me feel small and a bit numb, or existentialized, but her story did matter. I think that might be a central theme Atwood was attempting to convey: that her story did matter immensely, and the juxtaposition of such a cold, impersonal, anthropological view with such a human story reveals the flaws of the system. Not sure that she was trying to reveal flaws, though, so I may be wrong there. Just an interesting, dissimilar way of conveying the story...but why? Was she showing that these issues can be discarded or viewed too broadly, too generally, and that we should look to the individuals? Feel human pains? I guess we were meant to feel relieved, though, as I did feel. That it was over, that we could progress, and that we were doing what history has always done, fitting the mold of the writers of fate?
Confidence in my own ideas will solve everything. [or so she thought..., the book would read]
