Culture, Ideological Dissonance and Romanticism of Silence in Yvonne Vera’s Under the Tongue: A Contextualisation of the Contemporary Society

Abstract

This paper interrogates the cultural, ideological, and gendered dimensions of silence through a critical reading of Yvonne Vera’s Under the Tongue, foregrounding the paradoxical romanticisation of silence within patriarchal societies. It argues that while silence is often culturally aestheticised and sanctified, such romanticisation functions to naturalise repression and sustain gendered power hierarchies. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theorisation of silence as a mechanism of power embedded within institutions, the study examines silence as both a survival strategy and an instrument of control. Vera’s protagonist, Zhizha, embodies silence as a response to incestuous violence, illustrating how enforced muteness both shields and erases the traumatised subject. The paper contends that the fetishisation of such silence transforms suffering into aesthetic spectacle, thereby muzzling lived pain rather than confronting it. Through Runyararo, Vera disrupts this ideological economy of silence. Her rupture, provoked by the discovery of her daughter’s violation, constitutes a radical intervention that exposes the devastating human cost of cultural silence and challenges its moral legitimacy. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative approach grounded in close textual analysis of Under the Tongue, supplemented by feminist, cultural, and critical theory. A thematic analytical framework is employed to examine silence as a culturally sanctioned yet oppressive construct within African patriarchal conditions, with reflective reference to Zimbabwe as a representational society. The findings position silence not merely as a communicative mode but as a powerful mechanism of repression whose romanticisation demands urgent ethical re-evaluation. The paper ultimately proposes alternative cultural engagements that privilege voice, justice, and human dignity over inherited silences.