Illness In Octavia Butler's Speech Sounds

In the story "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler, all of the characters are struggling from an illness, an epidemic outbreak that has affected their entire lives. Rye is a woman who lost her family and, because of her illness, her ability to read. Her story is similar to African Americans during the era of slavery because when they were taken and put on ships they lost their entire families, their freedom to do what they wanted, and their ability to learn how to read, write and communicate. In a way, the illness that Rye obtained symbolized what happened in many slaves lives. It was as if slaves were condemned with the same illness as read in the story. This story is symbolic in the way that they use the characters and their circumstances. Slaves

were all stripped from their families and were not brought up learning to read or write. This is symbolic to the part of the story were the two kids came in. Both, now orphans, with little to no educational background. Rye's fear of talking because of the dangers that could happen symbolized the slaves fear of learning to read because of the trouble they would get into with the masters.
During the illness in the story many people died.

This also happened when slaves were on ships. Often times they died while still on the ship. So the illness in Butler's story symbolized the boat that slaves were brought over on. Slaves were all fluent in their own language but when they were brought to America they did not know the language that Americans spoke nor could they read the American language. This often got them confused, mixed up, and even lost from their families. All of their friends, parents or even children were ripped from them like the illness in the story. Simpkin claims that, "State laws gave slave marriages no legal protection and in these transactions husbands could be separated from their wives and children from their mothers." (1). This happened to Rye because in the story she lost her children, husband and The rest of her family to the illness. (Butler 344) The illness in the story could also symbolize slave masters. Simkin has an excerpt from a man who states that his master "' drew out a pistol, and said that if I went near the wagon on which she was, he would shoot me. I asked for leave to shake hands with her, which he refused, but said I might stand at a distance and talk with her.'" The slave master stripped this man away from his love in just minutes. Just like the illness stripped away Rye's

family.
Freedom is something that slaves in the slavery era and the people in the story both lost. In “speech sounds” all of the people who survived lost the freedom to do something. Whether it was through speech, or comprehending. They no longer had the freedom or the ability to express themselves how they truly wanted, according to Butler (345). Rye could only talk and could not read anymore. This hurt her because her entire life and career was based off of her reading skills because incidentally, she was a professor. With pure jealousy going through her mind, she thinks "He could read, she realized belatedly. He could probably write too. Abruptly she hated him- deep bitter hatred" ( Butler 346) This was like slaves back in the past because once they were bought and turned into slaves they no longer had the ability to do as they pleased. They could not talk freely, or say whatever they wanted. They could not read. They could not even write. This made them upset because they felt as if the Slave owners were keeping them from gaining access to education so they could feel belittled, not as powerful as the white men, and enslaved forever (Messmer 7). "The plantation owners in America had complete freedom to buy and sell slaves" (Simkin1) The slaves did not even have freedom over themselves and were brought and sold constantly.
In the time period of slavery education was not a factor for most slaves.

Slave masters wanted their slaves to remain dumbed and to never learn to read. In Speech Sounds there were two sets of people , the ones who could talk but could not read, and the ones who could read but couldn’t talk. This is how it was for slaves except most of them could talk instead of read. Only a select few could read, like Fredrick Douglass , "his relationship to written texts was a struggle not only against the laws that denied him literacy but also against a construction of literacy that aligned it with racial identity. "(Messmer 8). The ones who could read or write often hid their knowledge because they knew the dangers that could happen if they were found out. "For Douglass, then, it is the southern states' systemic cordoning off of literacy as a form of discourse that is denied to die slaves that inspires his resolve to acquire it." (Messmer 7). Same as in the story, Rye did not talk around other people she knew could not talk because of the danger it could’ve caused her. Other people who wished they could talk like her would try and kill her and for Obsidian people who could not read like he could would try to kill him. (Butler

350).
There are many similarities in the story "Speech Sounds" that correlate with the past of slavery and their denial to literacy. Octavia Butler intelligently incorporated how the lives of slaves could have been through her story by the way the characters , lost their family and friends that they once had, were stripped from their freedom, and lost their ability to learn or comprehend the American language.