Speech Sounds

“Speech Sounds” is about what happens when humanity loses its capacity for language. In the world that Butler creates, a mysterious illness has severely impaired people’s ability to communicate verbally. The illness also often leads to an inability to read and write, a poor memory, intellectual impairment, and even death. The rapid decline of organized society into postapocalyptic chaos demonstrates humanity’s natural interdependence and social connection. Cut off from the capacity to connect, the people in “Speech Sounds” are sick. The story implies that language is a fundamental and defining characteristic of humanity. Without it, people cease to be people.

With the illness, humanity is no longer empathetic. Instead, jealousy is a prevailing emotion that often escalates to violence and even murder. When Rye learns that Obsidian is literate, “she had never experienced such a powerful urge to kill another person” (Paragraph 50). This urge is not unusual. The likely explanation for the man murdering the woman at the end of the story is his hatred and jealousy over the two children who can speak. It is possible that he was jealous of the woman because she, too, could speak, which would explain why she was silent as she ran from him (rather than wailing unintelligibly). It also would explain how her two very young children learned to use language. In this society, people often cannot contain their rage and jealousy when they learn that someone can speak. Language loss has led humans to lose their basic capacity for empathy and compassion.

Without language, humanity begins to resemble the rest of the animal kingdom. This is apparent in Butler’s description of the man who lives across the street from Rye: “He rarely washed since his bout with the illness. And he had gotten into the habit of urinating wherever he happened to be. He had two women already—one tending each of his large gardens. They put up with him in exchange for his protection” (Paragraph 37). This neighbor has abandoned the courtesies of human civilization, relieving himself like a dog and having relationships with women in a transactional way. Fittingly, Rye describes him as “the animal across the street” (Paragraph 80). He is not the only one to devolve into an animalistic way of being. Children with the illness “had no future” (Paragraph 63). Rather than read books, they burn them; having no language and minimal mental capacity limits the children. Butler writes that the children “ran through the streets chasing one another and hooting like chimpanzees” (Paragraph 63). With limited prospects and intellectual capacities, they “would grow up to be hairless chimps” (Paragraph 94). Humanity in “Speech Sounds” is hardly human anymore.