The Scream

For my article, I chose Kelly Kromer’s “Silence as a Symptom: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Hush.” I was very intrigued by her view of speech as a conduit that is responsible for establishing “cultural codes of conduct and policing the actions of individuals.” There’s a common phrase that I’m sure everyone has heard: “Actions speak louder than words.” And yet, vocal interaction is so much more common than the physical – that it has the power to for and police something as great as a society shows how the potential for the physical in bringing people together. I don’t mean this in solely a sexual way; the image of the silent students in the lunchroom with the one silent, crying girl, stuck out to me a lot in this episode. Physical representations of emotion are so much stronger than vocal declarations of it, in that they are more genuine, less controlled. It also serves as an equalizer, because words are something particular to a person, while physical emotion (crying, hugging, smiling) is something universal.

The reason that I fin Hush to be so disturbing is that the cause-effect relationship between fear and voice is fear and the scream. And the scream signifies so many things: it is our vocal embodiment of fear, our cry for help, and our warning to others. The little lullaby that the young blonde girl sings really evokes the alarming nature of losing this ability to scream: “You’re gonna die screaming but you won’t be heard,” which evokes the helplessness that is created by this imposed silence.

Another consequence of removing voice from the episode is found in that Whedon forces the viewer to become an active part of the show. The viewer must read the characters’ signs, interpret their motions, and analyze and layer the images and music to and understand actions and moods, because nothing is explained for them. This isn’t an episode that you can turn away from for a moment and not miss a thing – and, consequently, the viewer is more invested in the episode, more invested in the frightening images, and is undeniably drawn to wonder what they would do if they lost their voice.

<3 Lisa

http://slayageonline.com/essays/slayage19/Kromer.htm