Speech Sounds - Themes and Relevancy - Communication

Communication

"You see what a blessing speech is to me It brings me into closer and tenderer relationship with those I love and makes it possible for me to enjoy the sweet companionship of a great many persons from whom I should be entirely cut off if I could not talk." Helen Keller, Philadelphia Pennsylvania July 8, 1896

The difficulties of life without spoken or written language are one of the most obvious themes of the story. Conflicts continually arise among people as a result of limited communication and misunderstandings. For instance, Rye tells us that the fight on the bus was likely the result of a misunderstanding rather than a disagreement. She explains: “The fight would begin when…someone came to the end of his limited ability to communicate.” Although she herself can speak, Rye no longer does so since there are few who are still able to speak or understand, and because of the danger of appearing superior. Butler writes, “Such ‘superiority’ was frequently punished by beatings, even by death” (p. 93). The communication deficiencies, coupled with intellectual impairment brought on by the illness, made many aggressive, that they acted in “anger, frustration, hopelessness, and insane jealousy” (107) toward the less impaired. Rye’s own impairments force her to battle similar reactions of her own. As a former professor and writer, she is painfully aware of her disabilities and has to overcome her own violent urges upon discovering that Obsidian can read and probably write. Butler writes, “She felt sick to her stomach with hatred, frustration, and jealousy. And only a few inches from her hand was a loaded gun” (Butler, 98). Following the death of Obsidian, Rye wonders if the woman’s ability to speak had led to her murder. After hearing the young girl shout in fluent speech in defense of her mother's body, Rye wonders, “Had the woman died because she could talk and had taught her children to talk? Had she been killed by a husbands festering anger or by a strangers jealous rage?” (Butler, 107).

• Impairment

“She had heard so little coherent human speech for the past three years, she was no longer certain how well she recognized it, no longer certain of the degree of her own impairment" (p. 94).

"She had lost reading and writing. That was her most serious impairment and her most painful" (p. 98).

"The illness had played with them, taking away, she suspected, what each valued most" (p. 99).

• Body Language

“The loss of verbal language had spawned a whole new set of obscene gestures” (p. 95).

“In this world where the only common language was body language, being armed was often enough” (p. 93).

"The bearded man stepped back and watched the driver gesture threateningly, watched him shout in wordless anger and use hand gestures to replace lost curses” (p. 93).

"He touched her mouth and made chatter motions with thumb and fingers. Could she speak?" (p. 99).

"He tapped his mouth and shook his head. He did not speak or comprehend spoken language." (p. 99).