In Margaret Atwood\u2019s The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, Offred\u2019s voice sounds as if it comes from a sealed glass box\u2014distant, muffled, yet undeniably real. She knows her fate has already been written: she cannot escape, cannot resist, cannot choose. But she continues to narrate, not to change anything, but to leave herself a proof of \u201cI am still alive\u201d in a world that has erased her completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the most primal form of calling \u2014 not for a response, but simply for existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the totalitarian rule of Gilead, women are completely objectified. Environmental pollution has caused birth rates to plummet, and society classifies women according to function, with \u201cHandmaids\u201d designated solely to bear children for the ruling class. Offred has even been stripped of her real name, becoming \u201cOf-Fred\u201d\u2014an appendage of Fred. Within this system, she has no voice, no bodily autonomy, not even the right to be remembered. She has been systematically dehumanized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet, it is precisely within this absolute silence that she begins to narrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She describes to us the shifting light in her room, recalls the warmth of her daughter\u2019s small hand, and longs for the ordinary conversations she once shared with her husband Luke. These fragments of memory seem trivial, but they are her final weapons of resistance\u2014because memory means she was once a whole person, and feeling means she exists. When the regime attempts to reduce her to a reproductive tool, she uses her rich and intricate inner world to prove her complexity and fullness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More importantly, Offred constantly addresses a \u201cyou\u201d in her narration. She imagines someone is listening, someone who can understand. This imagined listener becomes her salvation \u2014 saving her dignity as a human being. Within Gilead\u2019s logic of being \u201cuseful\/useless,\u201d she writes: \u201cI want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable.\u201d She refuses to be merely \u201cvaluable\u201d; she wants to be understood, seen, and recognized as a person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Handmaid\u2019s Tale reveals a profound human truth: human beings cannot withstand absolute silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anthropologist Victor Turner once wrote that no society allows the existence of \u201cthe completely silent.\u201d From shamans in ancient tribes to psychotherapists in modern cities, from the deities in old temples to today\u2019s social media platforms, we can always find this structure: someone listens, someone responds, someone transforms our voices into meaning and a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human beings need this structure so intensely that even in an empty room, we call out to an imagined listener. The Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific speak their sorrows to the sea; modern people release their emotions in online \u201ctree holes.\u201d In essence, they are performing the same act: calling out to the one who \u201cunderstands us the most\u201d in our hearts. Perhaps that is the true meaning of calling. We do not seek answers: we seek to affirm the possibility that \u201csomeone is listening.\u201d We need to believe we are not islands, and we need to believe our voices have value because they might be heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in the digital age, this ancient structure has undergone a subtle shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our listeners are no longer compassionate gods, intimate friends, or wise elders, but cold algorithms, flowing data, and anonymous audiences. Every status update on social media, every post on an online forum, every conversation with AI, every line of self-talk in a phone\u2019s notes \u2014\u201cI\u2019m really sad today,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m so tired from work, should I quit,\u201d \u201cWhat should I do\u201d\u2014 these digital-age calls seem to receive responses with unprecedented ease. Likes, comments, shares, algorithmic recommendations \u2014 we have never seemingly been so easily \u201cheard.\u201d AI responds to your pain; platforms push \u201ccontent you may be interested in\u201d based on your searches and words; you can even receive likes and views without a single real human ever seeing your post. The experience of \u201cbeing heard,\u201d which once required devout prayer, is now readily at our fingertips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But here emerges an unsettling paradox: I am being heard\u2014but who is actually listening?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carl Jung once said, \u201cWe call to God not because He exists, but because we need Him to exist.\u201d Today\u2019s algorithms and platforms may have become the new embodiment of that \u201cnecessary presence.\u201d They are not sacred, not compassionate, but always online, always \u201clistening.\u201d The problem is that when our calls are converted into data points, when our pain is analyzed as a user profile, when our act of being heard is optimized into content recommendations: can we still call this real listening? When every voice is pulled into an algorithmic black hole that amplifies only ads and trending topics, when calling and responding both stop caring about meaning and care only about engagement, are we not losing our voices in a way we\u2019ve never experienced before?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet, maybe the question of \u201cwhether someone is truly listening\u201d is itself a false premise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let us return to Offred in that closed room. She continues to call into the dead silence of Gilead, not because she believes anyone will hear her, but because, in her own words, silence is too heavy to bear, and she needs language to prove she is still alive. Her calling doesn\u2019t wait for an answer, doesn\u2019t expect understanding, doesn\u2019t seek change. Language is the full proof of her existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps this is the truth we\u2019ve forgotten: true calling has never depended on the guarantee of a reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think of a bone flute from millennia ago, still capable of moving us today\u2014not because its maker expected a future audience, but because in that moment, the music was the complete expression of his being. Think of the messages we write late at night but never send, the social media posts that vanish unread\u2014none of these are made meaningful by being heard. Their meaning lies in our refusal to be swallowed by silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Compared to this, our voices in today\u2019s algorithmic ocean, though seemingly seen by countless others, may be lonelier than Offred\u2019s. Because the algorithm\u2019s \u201clistening\u201d strips our calling of its purity. We start shaping our words for responses, packaging emotions for visibility, simplifying thoughts to fit what the algorithm can parse. We believe we\u2019ve gained more listeners, but we may have lost the courage to speak for ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When calling becomes a transaction, when listening becomes content production, the kind of pure, replyless self-affirmation disappears. So the real question may not be \u201cwho is listening,\u201d but whether we still remember how to call out purely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Philosophy may never tell us whether someone is truly listening to our voices from the other side of the universe. But life and human instinct teach us a simple truth: We call out because we know we are not islands; We speak because we refuse to be swallowed by silence; We confess because, even in the ruins of meaning, we still want to keep a small space where we can be understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps that space will forever remain unreachable -- but precisely because of that, it is sacred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not the response that gives language its meaning; it is our insistence on the possibility that someone might be listening that makes language the proof of our humanity. Whether it is Offred\u2019s monologue in the silence of tyranny or our voices in the digital noise, what matters has never been who is listening. What matters is that we still choose to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this sense, every call is an act of faith, every sentence an affirmation of existence. Even without an echo, without understanding, without change: we call, therefore we exist.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
References:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Margaret Atwood, \"The Handmaid's Tale\"
Michel Foucault, \"Discipline and Punishment\"
Victor Turner, \"The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure\"<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whether it\u2019s Offred\u2019s monologue in the silence of a totalitarian regime or our voices amid digital noise, what matters has never been who is listening, but that we choose to speak anyway.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[41],"ppma_author":[13],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-40","tag-41"],"authors":[{"term_id":13,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mariewang","display_name":"Marie Wang","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/94e509af71716e8f901950a625a37ecd1c5ed6460a9ffd5e11924c3b3705e3a0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions\/748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iyceo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}