Metaphors shape our
understanding of reality. A
well-constructed metaphor can reinforce previous notions of an idea or change
the way the idea or subject is understood and thus how reality is understood or
experienced, such as “silence is hollow,” because of this construction then
silence can be filled, or silence can echoing. In the high fantasy series The Kingkiller Chronicle, author Patrick
Rothfuss constructs a reality where magic and heroes exist and depicts the
journey of his main character Kvothe from boy to legend to aging innkeeper. His prologue “A Silence of Three Parts,”
introduces the character and the setting through the metaphor of the silence
surrounding the sleepy Waystone Inn.
Rothfuss maps the journey and introduces the complex nature of the man
with “true-red hair” and eyes that are “dark and distant” through a
multi-layered metaphor with silence at the center (Rothfuss). Through this multi-layered metaphor, Rothfuss
constructs a notion of silence that is complex and often contradictory,
reflecting this nature onto his main character, Kvothe.
Rothfuss
starts his definition of silence by dividing it into three manageable
parts. He begins with what he describes
as “the most obvious part;” the first silence (Rothfuss). The vehicles used to shape the meaning of
this part of silence are the expected connotations of silence. It is a hollow, echoing silence “made by
things that were lacking” (Rothfuss).
Using “hollow”, “echoing”, and “lacking” to describe silence creates the
expectation that something can and must fill that silence. The Waystone Inn has a “hole running through”
it; it has a void; something is missing (OED). Hollow can also imply that
something is insincere, vain, false, or empty. The Inn and its occupants are either lacking
depth of character or are insincere about their motives and intentions.
Rothfuss has references to music throughout the prologue and his books. In relating music to hollow and echoing,
Rothfuss implies that the piece, or silence, is not “full-toned” or does not
have the full range of sounds; essential elements are missing from the song of
the Waystone Inn, and it is merely repeating the sounds, or stories, that do
exist. The first silence is empty and
hollow but it is also something tangible; it can be “brushed” down the road by
a light wind.
The second silence is a small silence created by the
men that are in the bar. According to
Rothfuss this “small, sullen” silence is added to the first one. In a sense, this is filling in the hollow of
the first silence (Rothfuss). This
silence is dull, gloomy, and serious. It
has a mournful tone. It is small and
therefore young; a new silence that wasn’t there before and is still being developed. It is possibly of little importance, common
and ordinary, or perhaps just humble. Rothfuss says that this silence creates
an alloy, or adds to and perhaps diminishes the first silence. This alloy could temper or moderate the other
silence (OED). He also refers to it as a
counterpoint: “a melody added as an accompaniment” to fill in the tone of the
hollow silence and in this it has to follow fixed rules (OED).
The third silence is the most significant but least
obvious silence. This silence requires
one to “listen for an hour,” and maybe one can “begin to feel it in the wooden
floor” (Rothfuss). This silence has a
weight to it; it is heavy and deep and wide. Deep and wide imply that the
silence is profound, vast, it is “like autumn’s ending;” a slow and subtle
transition into another part of life (Rothfuss). This silence “wrap[s] the others inside itself”
in its vastness and depth (Rothfuss). It
is not hollow, like the first, it is filled with the other silences. This silence is capable of being possessed, and
according to Rothfuss the third silence belongs to the man with “true-red hair”
and with eyes that were “dark and distant” (Rothfuss). The deep silence is a “patient, cut-flower
sound of a man who is waiting to die” (Rothfuss). Rothfuss ascribes this silence to the man and
by doing so he creates a second level of metaphor in which the man is the tenor
and silence as the vehicle.
By using silence to describe the man, Rothfuss applies
all the vehicles used to describe silence to create the man. As a boy, Kvothe was hollow and echoing. He lacked the depth of character that he has
and can again possess. He is waiting to
be filled, like the first silence. The
second part of his life fills that hollow space inside him. This mixture, however, is an alloy; it is not
pure and works to debase the innocence of his boyhood. He becomes a legend in
the second part of his life; his adventures become the melody or counterpoint
to the first hollow silence of his childhood.
In the second part of his life, he is the antithesis of what he was as a
boy. The third silence is the man, as
the innkeeper, that is presented in the prologue. His legendary adventures have shaped him into
something that is weighty, deep, and heavy. He is patient, and like a cut-flower he “is
waiting to die” (Rothfuss). The silence
pervades him until it becomes him; however, like him the silence is a patient,
cut-flower that is waiting to die. This
implies that the silence will fade and perhaps the adventure that Kvothe craves
will be back in his life. Rothfuss’s use
of hollow and deep work to reinforce this notion of the adventure not being
over for Kvothe; hollow and deep can both alternately mean “the middle or depth
of night or winter” (OED). If the man
and the silence are hollow and deep, in the middle of winter, then there is light
that will come with dawn.
Rothfuss creates a dynamic character for his audience
through metaphor. By using so many vehicles
for the idea of silence, and by extension his character, he creates a dynamic and
complex understanding of silence and men.
At some points the vehicles even seem to contradict themselves, silence,
of Kvothe, is both small and wide, hollow and deep, an accompaniment and
antithesis. Silence is not something
merely heard but felt; it has weight and texture shown in the “rough,
splintering barrel” and wooden floor; it is quiet and echoing (Rothfuss). Silence is music, deep and profound, but it
is found lacking, something is missing and Rothfuss wants his readers to think
about what that is.
Works Cited
Oxford English
Dictionary. Retrieved 25 September
2013. Web.
Rothfuss, Patrick. The Name of the Wind. New York: Daw
Books, Inc. 2009. Print.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Name of the Wind
Patrick Rothfuss
Prologue
A Silence of Three Parts
It was
night again. The Waystone Inn lay in
silence, and it was a silence of three parts.
The
most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were
lacking. If there had been a wind it
would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks,
and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there has been a crowd, even a handful of
men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and
laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the
dark hours of night. If there had been
music … but no, of course there was no music.
In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence
remained.
Inside
the Waystone a pair of men huddled at one corner of the bar. They drank with quiet determination, avoiding
serious discussions of troubling news.
In doing this they added a small, sullen silence to the larger, hollow
one. It made an alloy of sorts, a
counterpoint.
The
third silence was not an easy thing to notice.
If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the wooden
floor underfoot and in the rough, splintering barrels behind the bar. It was in the weight of the black stone
hearth that held the heat of a long dead fire.
It was in the slow back and forth of a white linen cloth rubbing along
the grain of the bar. And it was in the hands
of the man who stood there, polishing a stretch of mahogany that already
gleamed in the lamplight.
The man
had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes
were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes from knowing
many things.
The
Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest
silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth
stone. It was the patient, cut-flower
sound of a man who is waiting to die.
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