In literature, silence often functions as more than just the absence of speech; it serves as a powerful tool for communication, repression, and the reinforcement of societal norms. In The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat and Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka, silence takes on profound significance. Both texts explore the ways in which silence is used to uphold gender roles, signal trauma, and prevent healing. By examining these silences, we gain insight into how patriarchal power dynamics operate and how characters are shaped by the things left unsaid. In both The Dew Breaker and Death and the King’s Horseman, silence serves to reinforce traditional gender roles and perpetuate sexism while simultaneously hindering character’s ability to heal from trauma.
In The Dew Breaker and Death and the King’s Horseman, silence plays a crucial role in reinforcing traditional gender roles. Female characters are often relegated to positions of quiet submission, their voices suppressed by societal expectations, which dictate their behavior and responses to the men around them. In The Dew Breaker, Anne, the wife of the titular “dew breaker,” remains largely silent about her husband’s violent past. For instance, in The Dew Breaker, Anne’s character illustrates this dynamic as she largely refrains from discussing her husband’s violent history. Her reluctance to confront him about his scars reflects her role as a caregiver, where maintaining peace in the household becomes her priority. This expectation highlights a broader societal norm that pressures women to uphold stability, often at the expense of their emotional health and personal agency.
Moreover, this portrayal underscores the critique of patriarchal structures that limit women’s identities and experiences. Through the use of silence, both Danticat and Soyinka explore the complexities of trauma and the societal pressures that shape female characters, revealing the struggles they face in navigating their roles within these constraints. In this context, Beatriz Caballero Rodríguez’s study highlights how trauma and gender in literature are interrelated, illustrating how silence can serve as a coping mechanism for female characters under societal pressures, further emphasizing the role of literature in understanding women’s nuanced experiences.
Ka, too, experiences the weight of this silence, struggling to reconcile the father she loves with the violent past he conceals.“Ka reflects on her struggle, stating, ‘I had never tried to tell my father’s story in words before”(Danticat 6), signaling her recognition of the silence that has shaped not only her understanding of him but also her own identity and connection to him. This statement emphasizes the impact of familial silence, where Ka feels compelled to both preserve and break through it. The silence maintains her father’s power but distances her from fully knowing him, trapping her in a cycle of reverence and alienation.
Similarly, in Death and the King’s Horseman, Iyaloja embodies the tension between authority and gendered silence. Although she is respected and influential within her community, her authority is still limited by cultural gender norms. When Elesin requests the young bride on the night of his ritual, Iyaloja expresses initial resistance but ultimately yields to his wishes. This moment underscores how even powerful female figures are expected to comply with male desires, thereby upholding patriarchal structures. Her brief protest, followed by silence, illustrates how the expectation of male dominance overshadows female agency, reinforcing societal norms where men’s voices dictate outcomes.
In both texts, silence acts as a mechanism for controlling women, reinforcing their roles as caretakers of tradition, morality, and emotional labor. Women are often expected to remain silent in the face of male authority, a silence that perpetuates patriarchal structures and prevents them from asserting their agency fully. As Hélène Cixous argues in “The Laugh of the Medusa,” “Woman must write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing” to break free from the historical silences imposed on them (Cixous 875). Yet in both The Dew Breaker and Death and the King’s Horseman, these female characters remain bound by silence, reflecting the broader societal expectations placed upon them.
Silence also functions as a powerful signal of trauma in both The Dew Breaker and Death and the King’s Horseman. In The Dew Breaker, the trauma of Ka’s father’s violent past is communicated not through his words but through his refusal to speak. As a former torturer in Haiti, his silence is a way of burying the horrors he committed. He tells Ka early in the novel, “I killed many people” (Danticat 22), but this brief admission is followed by long stretches of silence, where the details of his atrocities are never fully disclosed. His inability or unwillingness to confront his past leaves Ka grappling with a fractured sense of identity.
The trauma of his actions haunts him and his family, creating a barrier that cannot be overcome as long as silence reigns. Judith Herman notes that “the ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness,” which is precisely what Ka’s father attempts to do through silence (Herman 1). The silence surrounding his past, much like his refusal to atone, perpetuates the trauma instead of offering a path toward healing. Ka is left with the emotional burden of reconciling the man she loves with the terrible deeds he has committed, all while navigating the complexities of her own silence.
In Death and the King’s Horseman, trauma is signaled Elesin’s silence as he faces his ritualistic death. He does not speak openly about his fears and hesitation, though they become clear through his failure to complete the ritual. His silence communicates the weight of the cultural and spiritual expectations placed upon him, as well as his internal struggle. “The weight of longing had come over me,” he says in his moment of realization (Soyinka Act 1, Scene 2), but this admission comes too late, as his silence has already led to his downfall.
The cultural trauma of colonialism also permeates the play, though it is often communicated through the silence of the characters. Elesin’s failure to die as intended disrupts the spiritual order of his community, signaling a larger collective trauma caused by the British colonizer’s disregard for their customs. The silence surrounding this clash of cultures amplifies the pain of both the personal and communal losses experienced in the play.
In both texts, silence serves as a means of coping with or avoiding the pain of trauma, revealing the presence of deep wounds that remain unaddressed. This silence traps characters in cycles of suffering and repression. Rather than being simply the absence of words, silence becomes a powerful form of communication that conveys the weight of their trauma. In The Dew Breaker and Death and the King’s Horseman, this unspoken suffering underscores the character’s emotional struggles and highlights the complexities of their experiences.
Finally, both Danticat and Soyinka explore how silence serves as a barrier to healing from trauma. In The Dew Breaker, Ka’s father’s silence prevents not only his own healing but also that of his family. By refusing to speak about his past, he denies Ka the opportunity to fully understand her heritage and her identity. Ka’s realization highlights the impact of this silence: she recognizes that her father, once a steadfast figure in her life, is now a stranger due to his hidden truths. This profound shift in perception underscores how his silence has shattered her understanding of him and left her grappling with the unsettling reality. The silence becomes a barrier that prevents any possibility of redemption or reconciliation, as the past remains unresolved. This internal conflict is encapsulated when Ka reflects on a phrase from a book her father used to read to her, stating, “My mouth is the keeper of both speech and silence” (Danticat 32), emphasizing the weight of unspoken words and the complexity of their shared silence.
In Death and the King’s Horseman, silence similarly hinders the healing process. Elesin’s failure to speak openly about his fears leads to his inability to fulfill his ritual duty, disrupting the spiritual balance of the community. “What a thing this silence is,” Elesin remarks in a moment of introspection (Soyinka Act 1, Scene 5), acknowledging the weight of his own unspoken fears and desires. This silence leaves a scar on the community, as the cycle of life and death is interrupted, and the trauma of colonialism further deepens the wounds.
In The Dew Breaker and Death and the King’s Horseman, silence is a multifaceted force that reinforces gender roles, signals trauma, and hinders healing. Danticat and Soyinka use silence to explore the ways in which patriarchal and colonial systems of power operate, showing how the things left unsaid can shape individual and collective identities. By examining the silences in both texts, we gain a deeper understanding of how trauma lingers in the absence of speech and how breaking the silence is often the first step toward healing.
Worked Cited
Soyinka, Wole. Death and the King’s Horseman. Norton, 2022.
Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. Vintage Contemporaries, 2004.
Cixous, Hélène. The Laugh of the Medusa. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 1, no. 4, 1976, pp. 875-893.
Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Basic Books, 1992.
Rodríguez, Beatriz Caballero. “Trauma and Gender: Narrating Silence and Speaking the Unspeakable.” Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, 2019, pp. 183-197.
Sprockets and Springes 