Song for a Whale

“His signing hands showed me the whale in an ocean that suddenly went quiet, swimming over there, over there, trying to find the sounds again.”

This passage shows how sign language communicates differently from verbal English. The repetition of “over there” indicates how the manual figures can express the sensation of distance more viscerally and concisely than words. In addition, Kelly presents the image of a lonely whale, lost at sea because she’s cut off from all means of communication. The isolation inherent in being unable to communicate with others is a crucial idea in the novel.

“The plan made sense to Ms. Conn because she thought Nina was the smartest person in class, and Nina thought she knew sign language. She’d checked out a library book about it, so that made her an expert. Some people have the kind of confidence that lets them get away with being clueless.”

Iris’s knowledge of Nina’s ignorance of sign language runs counter to her teacher’s belief. As the teacher and Nina are both part of the hearing world, they ignore Iris’s feelings and her experience of Nina’s attempts at sign language and instead assert their own logic. Iris resents Nina’s unfounded confidence and sees her pretense of knowing sign language after reading a book as a type of arrogance. All of this contributes to Iris’s feeling of being unheard.

“Blue 55 didn’t have a pod of friends or a family who spoke his language. But he still sang. He was calling and calling, and no one heard him.”

Iris feels Blue 55’s plight acutely because it’s so like her own experience in a school and family full of hearing people, who communicate in an entirely different way. The repetition of the whale’s calls expresses his sustained efforts to communicate and emphasizes how he’s continually rebuffed.