Whispers Symbol Analysis

While Brazil spends Act Two digging for Wonders, Lucy spends it listening for the Foundling Father’s “Whispers” through her ear trumpet. These “Whispers,” which are the echoes of “thuh Disembodied Voice,” represent the way that the dead speak to the living, or history influences the present. As a “Confidence,” or secret-keeper for the dead, it is understandable that Lucy would take charge of discovering these hidden traces of the departed—Brazil suggests that, if the Foundling Father died alone, he would have “jusut dribble[d his last] words out” so that “Confidencell gather up thuh whispers when she arrives.” In other words, the echoes of Pa’s final words and wishes should be bouncing around somewhere near his replica of the Great Hole of History, so that Lucy can assemble them back together into something intelligible when she gets there. They are, in a sense, one manifestation of Pa’s legacy—his monologue in Act One is another, and of course the Wonders are one more. In short, then, the presence of Whispers in Parks’s universe shows how dead people, past events, and vanished places and things are never truly gone, but continue to influence the world through the traces they leave behind.