He’s Been Wanting to Say That for a Long Time”: Varieties of Silence in Colm Tóibín’s Fiction

Abstract

This chapter explores the multivalent significance of silence in Colm Tóibín’s fiction, from his debut novel The South (1990) to his collection of stories The Empty Family (2010). The chapter considers Colm Tóibín’s use of silence as an aesthetic practice and key narrative element that foregrounds the tensions between revelation and concealment, emotional release and reticence, as well as the ambiguities between knowing and unknowing, which underlie most of his protagonists’ dilemmas. The analysis pays attention to how Tóibín dramatises sexual taboos and traumas—i.e. familial homophobia and AIDS stigma—through narratives that develop within the domain of personal silences. The chapter thus identifies and assesses a discourse of silence running through Tóibín’s oeuvre, which constructs his characters’ psychology as they navigate personal and social pressures, and attempt to come to terms with their emotional truths.