Speech Sound By Octavia Butler

The sense of speech is a sense many of us take for granted, we don’t think about having the luxury of being able to have a voice as much as we should. Imagine living in a society where you can’t speak because people would be so jealous of your ability to speak that they would even try to kill you. Octavia Butler’s short story Speech Sound shows us the extreme contrast of a post-apocalyptic society where speech isn’t taken granted of but rather envied.

The first theme that is seen in this story is communication, it is a main theme because after the disease, it has left people unable to speak therefore people must come up with a sign language or a gesture form of communication with other people. Everyone uses symbols or, objects to represent

Rye also states, “that left-handed people are seen as more intellectual and less prone to aggression and irrationality.” (pg. 91-92). Which is a great example that further shows how people classify one another. The second theme in this story is illness, the story is rather vague about how the illness swept the world and why some people weren’t able to speak while others could, but illness is what stripped Rye of living a normal and happy life with her children and husband. Without the illness, Rye wouldn’t have been able to overcome some of the issues that she had because of the illness. She would have never been able to meet Obsidian or, meet the two three-year-old orphans. Because of the illness, she lost her ability to read and write and it makes her feel very vulnerable and she becomes jealous of Obsidian’s literacy. The third theme in this story is survival, the decline in intellectual ability has made everyone to fend for themselves in a zombie

Communication plays a large portion in driving the plot because throughout the entire story, characters such as Rye and Obsidian are forced to use gestures to be able to communicate with each other. “As they passed blocks of burned, abandoned buildings, empty lots, and wrecked `or stripped cars, he slipped a gold chain over his head and handed` it to, her. The pendant attached to it was a smooth, glassy, black rock. Obsidian. His name might be Rick or Peter or Black, but she decided to think of him as Obsidian. Even her sometimes useless memory would retain a name like Obsidian. She handed him her own name symbol-a pin in. The shape of a large golden stalk of wheat. She had bought it long before the illness and the silence began. Now she wore it, thinking it was as close as she was likely to come to Rye.” (pg. 97). This quote is a great example as to why communication is one of the key components that drives the plot because throughout the story we read the many actions of people and not what they are verbally saying just like the scene in the bus. Illness plays an even bigger portion in the plot than communication because this theme is the entire story. Illness is the leading cause as to why characters like Rye and Obsidian cannot speak and have lost abilities to read, and write. “The illness, if it was