y create between human beings, each of whom has both a mental and a physical life which do not always match.
The character of Ada is central to everything that happens. It is her voice we hear at the beginning and the end, her mind's voice, and the use of the voice at the beginning sets up what sort of person Ada is and assures the viewer that she has an awareness that her silent exterior might otherwise belie. It also shows that her refusal to speak is just that--a refusal and not a physical condition. She may not know why she has chosen not to speak, but she does know it is some sort of choice. She is intelligent, but not even she can answer why she has not spoken since she was 6. When Ada wants to speak to the outside world, she does so through her daughter, Flora, who is a ghostly mirror image of her mother and who seems to exist as an adjunct to the mother, serving as her voice and perhaps as the next opportunity for Ada to live. Ada is all the more an adjunct to the mother in that there is no father indicated--she was conceived out of wedlock, but the father is not brought into the equation.
However, Flora is not the only voice Ada has, for her piano is also her voice. She says that she does not think of herself as silent because of her music, and she does indeed express herself through her artistry in a way that can be understood by those willing to listen. The lack of a real connection between her and her new husband, Stewart, is in part indicated by his failure to understand her music, while her connection to her lover, Baines, is connected directly with her ability to express her inner self through music. Music thus becomes a means of contrasting Stewart and Baines, though hardly the only one.
There is an immediate break between Scotland and new Zealand signaled by the image of Ada and Flora being helped off the boat. Ada has said she would miss her piano on the voyage, and now she is set down on the sho...