Silence in Wilshire Bus - Essay Example

Ji Jia English 1B Schwartz 26 June Silence in Wilshire Bus In the short story Wilshire Bus by Hisaye Yamamoto, there is a heavy and foreboding silence. The racial diatribe of the ‘somatotonic man’, ushers in a silent response from all the other passengers, irrespective of their race, yet the fact is that the silence of each passenger affiliates to varied and specific motives. The silence imbued in the atmosphere of the Wilshire Bus turns out to be complex and complicated, with each layer of silence unraveling some hitherto ignored sense of complication, regret, fear, hatred or complacence.

To begin with, the setting in the Wilshire Bus as the narrative starts is one of peace and quiet. In fact, the initial bantering of the somatotonic man positively invites a hearty sense of amusement from all the other passengers, including Esther. However, once the oriental couple boards the bus, then the somatotonic man begins to say a bitter racial diatribe. All the passengers seem to give in to this expression of racial hatred, choosing to hide behind their helpless silence. In that atmosphere marked be least resistance, apathy and silence, nothing seems to be heard except the pain and fear residing in Esther’s mind.

The first and involuntary response of Esther is to emotionally and psychologically distance herself from the victimized oriental couple. She desperately tries to hide in the depths of her own consciousness. She tries hard to appear as unconcerned as other passengers. However, slowly but gradually the expression of racial hatred by the somatotonic man starts to have an influence on Esther. His words begin to remind her of varied other experiences she had as a Japanese-American in the US. Perhaps they begin to remind her of the historic injustice that the Japanese-Americans had to bear with during the World War II and many other instances of ill will between the two civilizations.

Gradually the hatred being expressed by the somatotonic man brings to life a much larger issue of the history of political bitterness between America and her country of origin. It no longer remains an issue between a few people, but rather enlarges to an issue between two cultures and civilizations. Irrespective of her best efforts, in that pervasive and deafening silence, Esther begins to realize that she shares something with that oriental couple, a sense of sharing that transcended beyond the physical features and a yellow complexion.

It was a sense of sharing that was based on a common sense of isolation, loneliness and racial abuse. Time and again Esther tries to get over this brooding silence by inventing practical excuses for the indecency of the somatotonic man, considering his inebriated situation, affirming that she is Japanese and not a Chinese, finding solace in the fact that none of the other passengers joined the somatotonic man. Yet, despite her best efforts, the Oriental wisdom resting in her heart and the mind forces her to face the unavoidable truth that “People say, do not regard what he says; now he is in liquor.

Perhaps it is the only time he ought to be regarded” (Yamamoto 6). It is than that the reality tends to dawn on Esther. She acutely becomes aware of the oriental woman being silently angry at her for her trying to be passive and distancing herself from the troubled couple. Amidst that disturbing and poisonous silence, something within Esther forces her to accept her racial identity and origins. She remembers the Korean man wearing “I AM KOREAN” button and desperately feels like donning an “I AM JAPANESE” button.

When the somatotonic man leaves the bus, it seems that everybody in the bus is getting out of a forced and silent hibernation. It was a hibernation that was the outcome of years of racial and historical prejudice and ill will. It was a hibernation that decided to remain silent and passive in the face of obvious injustice. The bespectacled man takes the initiative to extend a hand of friendship from one civilization to other amidst the silent aftermath of that racial and emotional carnage. Yet, the overtures of that bespectacled man seem hollow and meaningless going by his passiveness and silent complicity when the actual abuse took place.

In the end Esther emerges to be a deeply shocked and disturbed person who is finding it really difficult to get over the pain inflicted by that incident. A realization dawns on her that there existed “nothing solid she could put her finger on, nothing solid she could come to grips with, nothing solid she could sink her teeth into, nothing solid” (Yamamoto 6). There is no doubt that the silence in the Wilshire Bus is something more than the ordinary silence. It is a silence that carries distinct shades of centuries of prejudice, abuse, political and cultural hatred, alienation and ill will.

It is a silence that is both disturbing and shocking at the same time. Works Cited Yamamoto, Hisaye. Wilshire Bus.