Significance of the play
The play captures the themes of loneliness and love, in a way that makes the reader, or the audience, awe at the depth of creativity of David Henry Hwang. The structure of the play targets the general audience, as it brings out the kind of feelings that someone keeps in the face of rejection and failure to fit in society. Two characters, a man and a woman in middle age, tell their versions of loneliness and their lack of human company. The man confides to the woman that he had to sleep in a waterfall in the previous night in the fear of silence.
The play treats the audience to the threats of loneliness and solitude. To the woman, she would rather die than live on her own again. When she discovers that the man has plans to escape and run away, she stands at the door and breaks down, becoming outdone by the fear of loneliness. That makes her destroy the fresh petals that she had been keeping in the house, as a sign of the kind of approach to love and care she would give the man who will accept her. The man’s decision to elope makes her lose it, and she kills herself.
Some of the most underappreciated things like human presence come out very succinctly in the story, like the longing for voice, just a voice. It is debatable which of the characters feels lonelier than the other, given that the man feared silence so much that he slept near a waterfall. On the other hand, the woman has a shakuhachi that plays in her house with an emulation of human voices. The use of two different approaches to fighting loneliness can be read to mean that the man had surrendered his fate to nature, while the woman still believed that she can make something of herself. That she chose to make a shakuhachi have simulations of human voices, and that the man decided to sleep near a waterfall signifies the forces of endurance and surrender; patience for the lady, and surrendering for the man.
A keen audience would learn to appreciate the little things they have in life. The fact that someone has real human interactions is critical, as it helps them to blend and find love. Rejection is a daunting thing for people, both for the subject and the object. For instance, the village had sent the middle-aged man to kill the woman on suspicion that she was a witch, implying that people were already afraid of her. On the other hand, the woman feared people from the village because she had thought that they rejected her, and her yearning for human presence and love was making her crazy. Good luck turned bad, when the man turned out to be unconfident and fearful of her, by the virtue that she was independent and domineering.
Conflict
The conflict of the play oscillates around love and loneliness, and the desire for appreciation. Sounds have a special meaning for the characters, as signified by the way the man starts the conversation, by pouring his heart on the way he liked the sound of tea pouring in the cup. That a woman decides to take her life because of rejection is a very dire need for acceptance. She termed it as rejection in the closing parts of the play, so much so that she did not see the need of staying alive.
On the side of the man, he was conflicted by three issues. First, he had come to kill the witch, a purpose that she achieved, albeit in a kind of situational irony. Secondly, he was feeling inadequate at the way the woman showered him with love and attention and thought that it was too much for him. Despite his slipping into love with her, something he had tried to avoid, he decides to leave and safe himself from the woman. Perhaps it was because he thought that she was a witch, but, considerably enough, he might have felt that he did not qualify for her love. The last conflict on the part of the man was facing life without her (Hwang Pg 4). He cared for love, and the dedication of the woman interested him, so well that he even stole glances of her in her bathroom, playing the flute at night.
The play succeeds in bringing out desires and the frustration that comes with the failure to fulfill them. For example, the woman kept a vase of petals perfectly looked after, in an attempt to keep a symbol of love and communicate her desire to care for a man the way she cared for the flowers. It is very interesting to see someone who is committed to loving miss out on love, in a stereotypical way that assumes her to be a witch. In the end, both characters miss out on love, and the woman's life halts into a tragedy.
Literally terms
First and foremost, the woman lived in a secluded place away from the village and near the forest. The decision to set the play in that seclusion puts emphasis on the aspect of loneliness and solitude for the lady. The man comes in at a perfect time, a moment when he dreamed for a human voice to break his loneliness. He gets it and wastes the chance, in a fatal way (Thurber, Perelman, and Benchley).
The woman plays the flute at night, outside the main course of the play. It serves to remind the man of the importance of artistic skills, even at middle and old age. She plays it for herself, but, indirectly, for him too. The playwright's choice to have her play the flute at night serves to offer a semblance of hope and longevity, that, the man will not only hear a human voice but also enjoy the sounds of music from the lady. Deductively, that was a sign that the lady wanted the man to stay, and for long. Death signifies an end, the end.
Works Cited
Cash, Justin. "Symbolism | The Drama Teacher". The Drama Teacher. N.p., 2006. Web. 15 May 2016.
Hwang, David Henry. The Sound Of A Voice. New York, N.Y. (440 Park Ave. S., New York 10016): Dramatists Play Service, 1984. Print.
Thurber, James, S. Perelman, and Robert Benchley. "The American Literary Scene". The New Yorker. N.p., 1949. Web. 15 May 2016.
