Speech Sounds

In the world of “Speech Sounds,” people have “name symbols.” These symbols are items that represent the name of the person who owns them. Valerie Rye’s name symbol is “a pin in the shape of a large golden stalk of wheat” (Paragraph 42). This symbol works because her last name is the common grain closely related to wheat and barley. She may go only by Rye because it is the only part of her name that her symbol can represent. The reader is invited to know Rye in the same way that another character might know her, as they would have no way of guessing at her first name.

The wheat pin represents not only Rye’s name but also herself. When she wants to communicate to Obsidian that she will stay with him even as he continues to be a vigilante police officer, she pins her wheat pin to his badge. As the badge and the pin are put together, the two characters also proceed together for the rest of the story until Obsidian’s untimely death.

Obsidian also carries a name symbol with him—a gold chain necklace with an obsidian pendant. The stone is “smooth, glassy,” and “black” (Paragraph 41).