The implication is that those who are silent have nothing of value to say, rather than valuing what they say. Historically, this type of silence has been co-opted and leveled at people as a means of oppression. To remain quiet, to not covet attention in an age that thrives on it, might seem admirable. She arrives in her new world voiceless, deprived of her primary means of expression.ĭepending on how you look at it, silence can be either a virtue or a weakness. But, as soon as she lands in New Zealand and enters her new life as the bride of a farmer, she is separated from her piano–it is simply too large to carry from the beach to her new home with her husband. The music she has studied her entire life has become her form of communication, her way of making noise and announcing herself to the world around her. Yet, she doesn’t think of herself as silent she has her piano.

She can only communicate through sign language, which has to be translated by her daughter Flora ( Anna Paquin), or through notes written on a small notepad she keeps around her neck. There is no medical explanation, so those around her think her silence grows from sheer will, that she is determined and refuses to bend.

It is her “mind’s voice” explaining that she has been mute since she was six and no one, not even she knows why. “The voice you hear is not my speaking voice,” Ada ( Holly Hunter) explains in The Piano’s opening voiceover.

The piano movie jane campion