"In the beginning, there was only silence," James Leeds says at the very beginning
of Children of a Lesser God, "and out of that silence there could come only one thing:
Speech. That's right. Human speech. So, speak!''' he could not have been more wrong.
In this opening speech, James appears to establish silence, and by extension
deafness, as "bad," and speech and sound (and hearing) as "good." This is the distinction
which most deaf people learn at a young age. …
