“One feels safer with a madman who speaks than with someone who cannot open his mouth,” said the French philosopher EM Cioran. Although seemingly counterintuitive, this statement is undoubtedly true, making us wonder what is so powerful about silence. Silence is, by definition, simply the absence of sound. How can an absence be so imposing? The answer lies in its ability to stifle, overwhelm and control. Because it is indefinite, silence invites the imagination to run its course, making it deeply intimidating and controlling. This fact has often been used as a means of control. This theory is clearly seen in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, in which different cultures and individuals use silence as a means of power, control, and manipulation. However, although it is the less imposing of the two, language is in no way less powerful than silence. Faced with the threat of silence, an urgent need for language and expression arises. As seen in Beloved and The Woman Warrior, the power of language still prevails; whether through writing, telling stories, or simply allowing memories to arise, language always finds a way to break the silence. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In Beloved, silence is used by white people as a tool to suppress black people, directly and indirectly. Morrison introduces this concept immediately with his dedication to the “60 million and counting” black people who were killed in slavery. It is Morrison's way of paying tribute to those people who have been faced with the ultimate silence – death – and are therefore unable to tell their own story. Yet even black people who survived struggled with silence. They were denied the opportunity to learn to write and had no say in their fate or that of their families. They were also stifled in a more symbolic way, through the brutal and senseless treatment they suffered. They were completely stripped of their humanity, made to believe they were worthless, and treated as inferior to animals. Not only did this dehumanization result in the loss of a personal voice, but it also caused lasting damage to the slaves' internal ability to express their pain. To be able to continue living as functioning human beings even after slavery, they had to silence their own memories and hide them from others and often from themselves. Sethe, for example, constantly struggles to silence her memories of the pain of slavery, often by working or distracting herself. When an occasional memory surfaces, she finds herself unable to deal with the emotions that accompany it. In one such case, "she had to do something with her hands because she remembered something she had forgotten to know." Something privately shameful... had seeped into a crevice of his mind” (Morrison 73). Not only does it show the crippling effects of their mistreatment, but it also shows the shame that complements these horrible memories. To combat these emotions, Sethe pushes them to the recesses of her mind, often by distracting herself. His motto is: “nothing better than this to begin the serious work of the day of pushing back the past” (ibid. 86). In the case of Paul D., he keeps his memories “in this tobacco tin buried in his chest, where there once was a red heart. Its rusty lid was closed” (ibid., 86). Even Denver, affected by the problems ofslavery only by inheritance, undergoes this suppression, this silencing of painful memories or thoughts. When she heard something about her family's past that “she couldn't bear to hear” (ibid., 122), “she didn't hear anything at all after that. For two years she walked in a silence too solid for penetration” (ibid, 121). This is a fairly extreme case, manifesting itself in physical symptoms, but the silence in any form throughout the novel is indicative of the horrific damage caused by slavery. Whether self-inflicted or not, this silence is not a solution; it only prolongs the pain. This repression cannot last long, because facing this silence is the only way for former slaves to continue their lives. Although ultimately beneficial, it is not an easy process. As Amy says: “It's going to hurt now...everything that's dead and coming back to life hurts” (ibid., p. 42). The first problem, dehumanization (the direct result of the destruction of slavery), is a difficult problem, but more accessible than suppressed memories. Baby Suggs aims to tackle this first problem by hosting gatherings that promote the expression of humanity, individualization and self-love. She told them: "[White people] are not in love with your mouth... what you say about it, they will not take it into account. What you shout, they do not hear... You must 'to love' (ibid, 104). In response, a huge emotional outburst ensued, with “children laughing, men dancing, women crying, and then everything mixed together” (ibid., 103). The release of such pent-up suffering is powerful indeed. For Sethe, Paul D, and Denver, their liberation is catalyzed by the presence of Beloved, the human embodiment of repressed memories that not only resurface, but also take on a physical presence in their lives. His presence forces them to confront the past, each in a different way. For example, when Paul D has sex with Beloved, he discovers that "rust flakes... fell from the seams of his tobacco tin." So, when the lid gave way, he did not realize it” (ibid, 137). . For Denver, Beloved is a reason for her to tell stories. They sit together and “Denver spoke, Beloved listened, and both did their best to create what really happened” (ibid., 92). It's therapeutic for Denver, who had to grow up in a house of silence and repression, with only scraps of stories to which she desperately clings. For Sethe, Beloved's mere presence is enough to trigger catharsis. For everyone, it reminds us that memories cannot – and must not – be suppressed forever. The silence in Woman Warrior is much less damaging, but still a very difficult subject for those bound by its restrictions. Although with less malicious intentions than those seen in Beloved, this silence also attempts to control the culture and traditions of a specific society. Efforts target children, women and those who transgress, all those who threaten the sustainability of traditional culture. By controlling what people say (or don't say), the Chinese are able to ensure that people continue to think, act, and feel in the ways that tradition dictates. Especially at a time when their culture is in danger of disintegrating (in the face of immigration to the United States), being selective in what is said allows only selected messages to be conveyed. This is illustrated in the story of the "Nameless Woman", an aunt who is rejected from the family and later commits suicide (and that of her newborn child). The first thingwhat Maxine is told about this woman is "you mustn't tell anyone... they say your father all has brothers because it's like she was never born" (Kingston, 3 ). By not allowing anyone to speak their name or acknowledge their presence, they suppress the parts of their memories that do not align with the common purpose of the culture - an exercise in selective memory taken far too far. Silence is especially valued among girls and children, as seen when Brave Orchid goes to the market to purchase a slave girl as a nurse, and readers see that only quiet girls are valued. Additionally, when Moon Orchid comes to live with Brave Orchid and her family, she is surprised to see how "her children were rude ['untraditional' in Chinese]" (ibid., 121). Children do not know how to speak only when spoken to, nor do they know how to speak only at the correct volume, which is why Moon Orchid considers them abominable. However, children cannot learn these things because no one lays down the rules or traditions; they are simply expected to know them. Adults withholding this type of communication from children only compounds the anxiety children feel about not being able to fit in. They don't know how to integrate into American culture because no one tells them how. They don't know how to integrate into Chinese culture because no one tells them how. And they certainly don't know how to be Chinese-American, because no one even knows how. Children are even lost when it comes to tradition. Maxine observes: “even good things are indescribable…we children had to infer holidays…adults get angry, evasive and shut you up if you ask” (ibid., 185). Maxine even insists that her mother cut out her tongue when she was a child to keep her quiet. Although not for this reason, it did indeed happen: she remained completely silent for three years. She didn't really understand her silence or the reasons for it, but she could understand that "other Chinese girls didn't talk either, so [she] knew the silence had to do with being a girl Chinese” (ibid., 166). Children's language difficulties are one of the many unfortunate byproducts of their culture's control over what is and is not said. As Maxine observes, “you can’t trust the Chinese with your voice either; they want to capture your voice for their own use. They want to prepare your language so that it speaks for them” (ibid., 169). Although it is expressed most clearly in children, both children and adults struggle to find a way to maintain their own voice in a culture that wants to “capture” them. As has been demonstrated, the suppression of memories is never complete, nor permanent, nor a solution; language and expression always manifest themselves, aggressively or subtly. In The Woman Warrior, readers find that the methods used to do this vary from narration (called "talk stories") to projection onto others and the resulting intimidation. Brave Orchid, Moon Orchid, and ultimately Maxine all take the first route by using these "debate stories" as selective messages chosen to reflect specific things they cannot say explicitly. “White Tigers” is the story of female strength, of finding balance between a woman’s filial and societal duties and her personal goals. These things can never be passed down outwardly from mother to daughter in Chinese society, but through elaborate stories, Brave Orchid is able to pass this wisdom on to.