Lack of Expression

English 1102-13

Lack of Expression

In Octavia Butler’s short story, Speech Sounds, the emphasis on jealousy and anger is displayed by Rye’s inability to express her emotions. This lack of expression allows the reader to view the varied complexities of humanity in trying situations. Rye’s anger towards Obsidian comes from her jealousy of his ability to read and write. All of the actions that occur after the initial onset are results of the inability to express themselves the way they do for so long before the pandemic occurred. Their ways of expression are ripped away from them quickly just as though they had a stroke which leaves them impaired. The thoughts and feelings they “hide away and keep in the dark to grow strange mushrooms,” are often released when it is too late and shows the new complexity of the human (Valente). Without the ability to read and write, Rye no longer has an out for her emotions. Since the pandemic, she portrays herself as one way to the outside world, but on the inside she is at a constant battle with anger. It is only when she discovers that others have the ability she longs for that she becomes jealous and the wicked side of herself begins to show through.

Evidently, when a person has a stroke, they lose a function they had previously. The function could vary from different things such as slow speech, illiteracy, vision, hearing, and even motor skills. The pandemic that occurs is “stroke-like in some of its effects. Language was always lost or severely impaired and never regained. Often there was also paralysis, intellectual impairment, [and] death” (Butler 5). The way the pandemic affects Rye is not through her speech or hearing, but through her literacy. She lost her way of expressing her emotion to others and the way she would let her feelings out so no one was hurt. She is now forced to keep parts of herself “hidden and secret” (Valente). Keeping some of her emotions hidden while only expressing those she lets people see...