Commentary: The Misery of SIlence-Maxine Hong Kingston

Silence can be portrayed as so many different things.  Silence can be protest, fear, expression, choice, forced, shyness or anxiety, and so many more topics.  A moment of silence symbolizes mourning for a person or group of people.  A day of silence is nationally observed to bring awareness to bullying, specifically to the LGBT community.  The book Speak portrays a character with selective mutism who uses it as a coping device after a traumatizing incident; the television show The Big Bang Theory portrays a character with selective mutism and uses it as a comedic device to poke fun at how inept the main characters are at speaking to women.  Silence can be inwardly reflective, or it can be an outward display of character.  It can call attention to someone, or cause someone to be overlooked.  With all the degrees of silence and all the directions it can go, it is not surprising that Kingston defines so much of her childhood by her constant silence. 

                While I cannot specifically relate to the silence of an immigrant family in a foreign school, I have observed many forms of silence which have many parallels to what Kingston describes.  In unfamiliar or nerve-racking environments, even the words of one’s own language can feel foreign due to uncomfortable surroundings.  The more that one worries about how they are perceived, the more likely they are to trip over their own words, and realizing this, they are more likely to simply stay silent.  This anxiety is what causes students to not ask questions in classes that trouble them.  A similar fear in other contexts is what may cause victims of verbal bullying to oftentimes not stand up to their attackers.  Even simpler situations, such as wanting to reply to a statement that was made but being unable to simply because the lesson or conversation is moving along, can put a strain on the struggle of silence versus speaking.

            I have found that the Day of Silence is actually quite effective in bringing awareness to the struggles of feeling trapped in one’s mind.  Consciously staying silent, even though it was my own choice, caused me to feel a little disheartened.  It gives the impression that maybe what I had to say wasn’t worth saying in the first place.  It made me realize how many unnecessary comments I make in a day, yet I wanted to make those comments anyway.  Before communicating with someone (I carried around a whiteboard,) I had to think through what I wanted to say and make it concise; they had to stick around while I wrote it if they wanted to see what I had to say.  Words seemed to knock behind my teeth and my mouth seemed to dry out.  Any noise from my throat, such as a laugh, was jarring.  It seemed both forbidden and freeing at the same time.  The interesting thing about the Day of Silence is that it both exaggerates the circumstances and at the same time doesn’t even come close to showing us what it’s truly like to be figuratively (or sometimes literally) silenced by the world.  Many of us don’t know what it’s like to be a victim.  Many of us, unfortunately, do.   

From my experience, I have found that I understand things best through metaphors.  The Day of Silence is very effective in communicating its message.  Silence is difficult to endure, and while part of it is a choice, it still takes someone to listen.  Silence can define someone, or can cause someone to force definitions upon themselves.  Silence is dangerous, but in some cases silence is wonderful.  Silence is so many different things because it is the absence of words; and without anything to go off of, people have to truly think for themselves.