Silence

[Shanna]

"From a logocentric point of view, speaking and not-speaking appear to be mutually exclusive. They represent alternatives: those of informing and keeping secret, of talkativeness and reserve, of public and private, of market and esoterics, as well as those of knowledge and ignorance, strength and weakness, and of prolific or stoic behaviour. ..

There is no clear border between that which one says and that which one does not say, between "Dire et ne pas dire" (Ducrot 1972; cf. Myers 1975). When a speaker considers that a listener might silently agree with him, when subjects are taboo, when there is censorhip or when one wishes to avoid taking a stance - in such situations it is possible to give an impression or imply something without having to say it. Silence can't be contradicted. Thus, it can be a subtle way of dealing with power relationships. ..

Secondly, silence, like speech, is connected in yet another way with the relationship between the intellect and power. Stifle all voices but one - this, according to Stefan Zweig, was the motto of National Socialism in Germany; an icy silence of terror, an enormous, impenetrable zone of silence in the middle of our Europe was its accomplishment. Gerhard Bauer (1988) studied its spread in the most detail. Certainly, silence can also be the determined defense against that one voice; consider the resolute 'Republic of Silence', as Sartre described occupied France in 1944: We are forced to be silent, but we say 'no' with our silence. ..

Perhaps, in the end, everything hinges on the ultimate, the unexpressible. Speech is based on an indecent overestimation of self. (Hofmannsthal 1979:403=II,14) .."

From : Eloquent Silence
Schmitz, Ulrich (1994)

JIMMY: ...Here it is. I quote: Pusillanimous. Adjective. Wanting of firmness of mind, of small courage, having a little mind, mean spirited, cowardly, timid of mind. From the Latin pusillus, very little, and animus, the mind. (Slams the book shut.) That's my wife! That's her isn't it? Behold the Lady Pusillanimous. (Shouting hoarsely.) Hi, Pusey! When's your next picture?
Jimmy watches her, waiting for her to break. For no more than a flash, Alison's face seems to contort, and it looks as though she might throw her head back, and scream. But it passes in a moment. She is used to these carefully rehearsed attacks, and it doesn't look as though he will get his triumph tonight. She carries on with her ironing. Jimmy crosses, and switches on the radio. The Vaughan Williams concert has started. He goes back to his chair, leans back in it, and closes his eyes.
ALISON: (handing Cliff his trousers). There you are dear. They're not very good, but they'll do for now. ...

From : Look Back In Anger
John Osborne
Is Alison's silence self-imposed or does Jimmy put her in this position - perhaps by slowly and systematically invalidating her entire life and background, and forcing a sort of resignation upon her? More importantly, what is the nature of her silence? Does it come of futility? Does it yield any sort of power to her? What, then, does that tell us about the nature of the relationship between Jimmy and Alison? Is Jimmy the more powerful by virtue of his ability to make these systematic attacks, or is Alison, because by refusing to rise in defence of herself, she is denying him something crucial, and parasitically draining him of his vitality in the process?

[Bastet]

Hello there! Is the whole quote on silence from the same book? Is it from Schmitz's Eloquent Silence? I'm writing a phd project related to power and silence, and I'd really appreciate some bibliography on silence. Thank you!

[Scheherazade]

Is Alison's silence self-imposed or does Jimmy put her in this position - perhaps by slowly and systematically invalidating her entire life and background, and forcing a sort of resignation upon her? More importantly, what is the nature of her silence? Does it come of futility? Does it yield any sort of power to her? What, then, does that tell us about the nature of the relationship between Jimmy and Alison? Is Jimmy the more powerful by virtue of his ability to make these systematic attacks, or is Alison, because by refusing to rise in defence of herself, she is denying him something crucial, and parasitically draining him of his vitality in the process?I would like to start by saying that I have read this play about 15 years ago and that what I can remember is somewhat limited.

I believe Alison's silence is self-imposed, a way of self preservation in the face of Jimmy's constant attacks. It is her way of standing up against him and fighting back. It is important to note due to his own failures, Jimmy comes to resent Alison and all the things she represents and he desperately tries to get a response out of her by constantly criticising her and her class. However, I believe, by not rising in defence of herself and reacting in a much different way from the way Jimmy would like, Alison is, once more, emphasising the social differences between Jimmy and herself.

Coincidentally, today I have come across this article, which you might find interesting:
On this day in 1956 John Osborne's first play, Look Back in Anger, opened at London's Royal Court Theatre. The press release for the play called the twenty-six-year-old Osborne "an angry young man"; when the play became a hit, the phrase stuck as a label for an under-thirty, post-war generation which felt disillusioned and disenfranchised. The Daily Express said that the play was "intense, angry, feverish, undisciplined. It is even crazy. But it is young, young, young." Critic Clive Barnes later called Osborne "the veritable beginning of the beginning," and cited the opening night of Look Back in Anger as the "actual birthday...of modern British theatre."

Some reviewers found more than anger in the hero, Jimmy Porter, calling him "a tiresome, boorish oaf," and an "exhibitionist wallowing in self-pity." Jimmy has a university education, but he has dropped out so far that he runs a sweet-shop, the better to observe and rage -- against the class-system still hanging on, against the empty promises of the welfare state, against the Cold War world that hardened into place, against his wife and friends for putting up with it. "I've an idea," says Jimmy at one point. "Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings and that we're actually alive. Just for a while. What do you say?" Such remarks, said Kenneth Tynan's review, make Jimmy "the completest young pup in our literature since Hamlet," and make the play "a minor miracle" for having expressed it:

All the qualities are there, qualities one had despaired of ever seeing on the stage - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the automatic rejection of 'official' attitudes, the surrealist sense of humour (Jimmy describes a pansy friend as 'a female Emily Bronte'), the casual promiscuity, the sense of lacking a crusade worth fighting for and, underlying all these, the determination that no one who does shall go unmourned.... I agree that Look Back in Anger is likely to remain a minority taste. What matters, however, is the size of the minority. I estimate it as roughly 6,733,000, which is the number of people in this country between the ages of 20 and 30. And this figure will doubtless be swelled by refugees from other age-groups who are curious to know precisely what the contemporary young pup is thinking and feeling. I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger. It is the best young play of its decade.
There would be other hits for Osborne -- Luther, Inadmissible Evidence, an Oscar for his Tom Jones screenplay -- and at times he would be angry mostly at how he had been forgotten, but he too came to regard the premiere of his first play as a defining moment. Here is the first paragraph of his two-volume autobiography:

May 8th is the one unforgettable feast in my calendar. My father, Thomas Godfrey Osborne, was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, on May 8th [he died when John was eleven].... The Second World War ended on 8 May 1945, a date which now passes as unremembered as 4 August 1914. On 8 May 1956, my first play to be produced in London, Look Back in Anger, had its opening at the Royal Court Theatre. This last particular date seems to have become fixed in the memories of theatrical historians. http://www.todayinliterature.com/today.asp?Search_Date=5/8/2006

[Shanna]

..(giggle)