Silence in Literature

However, if the circumstances of the expression were different, the import of the belt up dexterity also be different. In the solecism raised by Covino, Wentworth is the man praising Louisa Musgrove. Covino states that Louisa behaves after the talk in the manner a pupil would to a instructor or "like a less(prenominal) respectable idiosyncratic would with someone more powerful" (Covino 69). Even then, silence qualification not mean discernment. If Wentworth were threatening Louisa, for instance, her silence would not be agreement with what he stated or with what he cute from her. It instead could be a manifestation of fear, the certainty that if she verbalize up he would carry bug out his threat and deadening her. Silence then would be a matter of own(prenominal) discretion to avoid harm. The power intercourse would be the same--she is the less powerful and is silent in the face of the threat of the more powerful.

Unlikely as such a thing is in Jane Austen, if Wentworth were to make some thoroughly obscene account to Louisa, a suggestion something like what President Clinton was accused of doing by Paula Jones, silence might indicate an element of fea

but also a degree of indignation. We know the command that we do not want to dignify what the speaker verbalise with a response, and while this is something many people say out loud, they might also merely meet the original statement with stony silence. Such silence does not denote agreement at all.

Instead, it denotes a refusal to participate in a confabulation because the speaker is deemed unworthy and his statement offends. Here, again, the same power relation may be present so that the less powerful soulfulness is maintaining silence in the face of an unacceptable speech from the more powerful person. The silence conveys sum based on the circumstances.

What silence communicates, then, weighs on the context. The speech situation is an interaction amid speaker and audience. The audience may respond verbally or may respond with silence. What that silence means will depend on the power relations between the two and on the nature of the speech act undertaken by the speaker. We judge the meaning of the silence based on the speech and how the other person might be expected to respond to it. Silence might mean agreement, but it might
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