Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 20:30:04 -0500 From: tomdill-AT-wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) Subject: Re: Silence It may be worth noting that the person silenced is almost invariably a woman (whether it be an injunction against speech on pain of some terrible consequence or the actual removal of the tongue, as in several classical myths and Titus Andronicus, or a self-imposed silence as a kind of test of virtue or endurance, as in the most famous of all such tales, Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale" of Patient Griselda, derived from several earlier versions. More recently Jane Campion re-worked the motif in _The Piano_. The "silent woman" is often equated with the good woamn in folklore--but the old English tavern sign equates the silent woman with a headless woman. And all to do with power. Tom Dillingham
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