Sounds Of Silence Analysis example essay topic

In the process of conveying emotion and feeling, people take different routes in going about such a task. Some people draw, some debate, and others write. Paul Simon, a genius with words and music, wrote poems to describe his feelings on politics, love, and the ways of life. Hearing or reading a Paul Simon song gives a person a blessed experienced, they had just seen real emotion, an oddity in these days.

One Simon song that stands out above the rest is also probably his most famous, "The Sounds of Silence". Like many other Paul Simon pieces, the contradictory title is not the only confusing aspect of the song, each line conveys complex yet meaningful words. The 60's was a decade dominated by great musicians: Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. Paul Simon is another man that tackled music and took it to the level of excellence, like the other 60's music idols.

In his song "The Sounds of Silence", he puts multiple concepts of importance into one 35 line poem, successfully getting his point across. So the question is, what are the sounds of silence and what is it Paul Simon is trying to say? The Sounds of Silence that he refers to numerous times shows the lack of human communication in everyday life. Simon is saying that intelligent conversations or friendly words to one another have been overlooked in society.

The poem shows that although people talk to others, they are not saying what they truly feel. Instead they keep it inside, and those kept feelings are the sounds of silence. Numerous times he makes reference to technology, showing that it is the cause of the separation between people. He also says that while walking through a large city his eyes are opened to such lack of communication as he sees no talking or speaking. Since everyone speaks these sounds of silence the others follow such a trend and continue to uphold the lack of communication.

Although many of us are accustomed with some of Paul Simon's elated songs such as "You Can Call Me Al", the "Sounds of Silence", is one of his satirical songs. The" Sounds of Silence" are written in a very sad tone, as he expresses his shame for humans lack of feeling. Numerous times he refers to his loneliness, such as the verse "In res less dreams I walked alone". He's formed this sort of contempt for American society, but he cares to push himself from it, he cares to remain lonely and by himself instead of conforming to society. "People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, people writing songs that voices never share, no one dare disturb the sound of silence", is the most powerful set of lines in this poem.

As Americans, we are inclined to talk. It's become a tradition in our country to talk whether there's a purpose to the conversation or not. There's no real emotion there, people talk simply to talk. It's a satirical set of verses on the shallowness of Americans. His uses of similes, personification, and metaphors create this message of hostility. He uses "silence like a cancer grows", as a simile, showing that silence spreads as fast as cancer on a human body.

Another simile used is " my words like silent raindrops fell", showing that he was being ignored by society. The first line of the poem", Hello darkness my old friend", personifies darkness and his feeling of pain. However it's ancient to him feeling pain, something he used to have. As he talks about the "neon god" and the "neon light" he is referring to America's lust, obsession, and involvement with technology. To him, that's the root of this lack of communication. The last word of each two lines rhyme with each other until the last line of each stanza ending in the sounds of silence.

He makes this sound repetition as well as the lack of rhyme for a certain purpose, to emphasize the fact that the sounds of silence will always be there and no one would dare disturb or change that. Throughout the multiple labyrinths Paul Simon creates for his readers and listeners to experience, his meaning is pretty simply. Society has lost it's character it once had from technological advances. That certain quality of communication we were able to obtain is now lost..