Grief is a strong emotion that can inspire people to make life-altering decisions. People are willing to conduct altruistic acts of bravery in memory of those they have lost because they feel lonely and hopeless. In Butler’s short story, speech sound, Rye is a young lady who has been stripped of her children, husband, sister, and parents by disease, leaving her alone for three years. Butler urges through characterization that loss takes many forms, and that acceptance and readiness to move ahead despite loss is the only way to recover.
At the beginning of the story, Rye is disturbed with loneliness and hopelessness after the death of his family members three years ago. She decides to visit Pasadena where she might have one group of relatives left alive- a brother and his two children. Butler says, “Rye had expected trouble sooner or later in her journey. She had put off going until loneliness and hopelessness drove her out.”
There was a lot of miscommunication and conflict. Butler defines what was happening at the time by using two young males who stood in the doorway, groaning and waving at each other. The driver appeared to be working hard to keep them off balance. The hand gestures stopped just short of imitation punches, intimidation hand games to replace curses that had been forgotten. People stared at the couple and made slight nervous noises. Rye kept a close eye on the two, knowing that the battle would start when one of their nerves snapped or their limited communication abilities ran out. One of them occurred when the bus hit a particularly large pothole, causing one man to collide with his shorter opponent. He slammed his left fist into his bigger opponent as if he didn’t have or need any more weapons. He hit hard enough and fast enough to knock his opponent out before he could reclaim his balance or perhaps even punch back once. The tall person was in a lot of discomfort from the punch and was crying on the floor. After the battering, the tall person lost the fight.
The importance of images in Butler’s short story is amongst the most crucial themes. Bulter recounts how the loss had progressed in his short piece Speech Sound, claiming the illness was a pain in the manner it killed people. It was quite detailed. The language was either lost or badly hampered at all times. It could never be reclaimed. Paralysis, intellectual disability, and death were all common occurrences. The author goes on to describe Rye’s feelings toward the person who lived down the street from her. Since his illness, he hasn’t washed in a long time. And he had developed the practice of urinating wherever he was (Butler).
The short story’s central theme is loss, particularly when Rye’s reading and writing abilities are taken away. That was her most major disability, as well as the most painful. She was a history professor at UCLA. She had previously worked as a freelance writer. She couldn’t even read her work anymore. She had a stack of books in her apartment that she couldn’t bear to read or use as fuel. She had a mind that didn’t recall much of what she’d read previously. Butler’s use of loss as a literary device in his short tale is effective since it is generally recognized and comprehended by readers.
Butler successfully juxtaposes toddlers with chimpanzees in the short piece Speech sound to highlight the gap in time they are existing in. She gulped and shook her head. She didn’t know how to break the news to him that her children had died. She had convinced herself that the youngsters of today were pitiful. They’d gallop through the city canyons with no recollection of what the structures were or how they came to be. Children today collected books along with wood to use as fuel. They were chasing one another through streets, hooting like chimps. They didn’t have a future. They’d been everything they’d ever been. When Rye states that each day had led her closer to the day when she would do what she had gone home to avoid: placing her gun in her mouth and pressing the trigger, the juxtaposition plays again.
It is a noble course to want to help someone who is in need. Obsidian runs towards a woman being pursued by a man with a knife in Butler’s short story Speech sound. Rye, who is accompanied by a woman, draws his gun and releases the safety. She scans the area for anyone else who could be drawn to the sight. She observed the man cast a glance at Obsidian before lunging at the woman. Before Obsidian shot him, the woman attacked his face with her glass, but he grasped her arm and proceeded to stab her repeatedly. The man doubled over and then tumbled over, holding his stomach. As a result, the woman was killed (Coetzee).
When obsidian glances around to see what Rye desired in the short story Speech sound, irony appears when the gunned guy opens his eyes. Unfortunately, he grabbed Obsidian’s holstered handgun and pulled the trigger. Obsidian slumped after being hit by the bullet in the temple. That’s how easy it was, and how quickly it happened. Rye shot the injured man as he turned the gun on her an audible thud. Rye was alone, surrounded by three bodies. She knelt alongside Obsidian, dry-eyed and frowning, unsure why things had changed so fast. Obsidian had vanished.
The analogy she was about to make, which resulted in the deaths of two toddlers, draws a parallel between the tragedies she had to witness. Butler employs the parallel to convey Rye’s thoughts. Rye was grieving the death of Obsidian, a man she had met after a lengthy period of being alone. It was as if she had been taken from her familiar surroundings and subjected to an unfathomable beating. The descriptive language gave the readers a clearer and deeper feeling of meaning and comprehension.
Rye got up in the short story Speech Sounds, sick to her stomach with loss and wrath. Butler creates an uncertain situation when he says she would vomit if the kids started crying. Because he connects Rye vomiting with the kids wailing, the scenario in which it is used is quite ambiguous. Readers can go further into the story because of the uncertain context. They’d reached the age when they could scavenge. She didn’t require any more misery. She didn’t require the children of strangers who would reach adulthood to be bald chimps.
In conclusion, the loss may be a strong motivator that drives people to their character’s limits. Butler uses characterization to create a short story that highlights the lengths to which people are prepared to go to recover from the loss. When faced with loss, Rye makes altruistic and sometimes drastic measures to put an end to his loneliness.
Work Cited
Butler, Octavia E. Speech sounds. Thornwillow, 1983.
http://future-lives.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/speech_sounds.pdf
Coetzee, J. M. (1992). Doubling the point: Essays and interviews. Harvard University Press.
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dZ7_o8ElbQoC&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&dq=The+man+doubled+over+and+then+tumbled+over,+holding+his+stomach.+As+a+result,+the+woman+was+killed.&ots=M5LW0MlClP&sig=8b8DYWN6sJ51rWnJNIZ4y_KwA98
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