When Saying Nothing Feels Necessary: The Question of “Is It Better to Speak or to Die?”

dharmika pendyam

11.25.25

There are moments when saying nothing feels safer than speaking. Yet within that safety lies a quieter danger: the slow erosion of the self. In André Aciman’s 2007 novel “Call Me By Your Name,” a pivotal question is posed as Elio Perlman’s mother reads him a passage from “The Heptaméron.” A knight, madly in love with a princess, asks her “Is it better to speak or to die?” The line settles in Elio’s mind, poised on the edge, where speaking could change everything or ruin it entirely. In many ways, this tension mirrors the emotional landscape that shapes Generation Z today — one defined by navigating self-expression amid rising anxiety, digital pressure and an intense fear of being misunderstood. The question Aciman poses is not just literary; it reflects the broader cultural struggle between restraint, vulnerability and the quiet desire to be known.

Elio’s hesitation in “Call Me By Your Name” captures the quiet war between what is felt and what is vocalized. In the town square, he avoids telling Oliver his true feelings, fear tightening the space between them into silence. The scene is awkward and deliberate, meant to make the novel’s readers and the subsequent film’s viewers sit in both characters’ discomfort. To speak is to take a risk; to offer something fragile without knowing how it will land. When Elio finally kisses Oliver in the meadow, it’s an unspoken confession that words could never explain. Rejection, uncertainty, vulnerability — these are the unavoidable companions of honesty. Oliver leaves Crema and takes a piece of Elio along with him. Speaking can wound, but silence isn’t freedom either — it only trades pain for a quieter ache, each withheld word a small surrender. For Elio, silence promised protection but delivered isolation.

Elio and Oliver in the town square scene.

Silence often masquerades as self-preservation. It acts as a shield from embarrassment, rejection and heartbreak — or so it seems. Because to speak is to peel back something raw inside oneself. Like tearing open a tangerine, unleashing a scent that’s too strong once released, words can feel too revealing to bear. Yet beneath that restraint is something deeper, something more generational. Generation Z has grown up in an age that prioritizes control — emotional composure over expression, self-protection over connection. 

A 2019 study conducted by the American Psychological Association found that 27% of Gen Z are more likely to report anxiety and depression, with many struggling under social and digital pressures that amplify fears of rejection and misunderstanding. Similarly, Psychology Today highlights that teens often experience social anxiety, characterized by excessive self-consciousness and fear of public speaking, leading to withdrawal from social situations.

Like Elio, many young people equate silence with safety, mistaking restraint for control. This fear of saying the wrong thing, of being misunderstood or abandoned, appears across many aspects of Gen Z communication. Many defer to ghosting — ending relationships by disappearing without explanation — which researchers describe as a strategy to avoid emotional discomfort or conflict. 

Elio and Oliver on a balcony during their trip to Bergamo.

According to Dr. Sarah Hensley, a psychologist specializing in relational science, Gen Z is exhibiting a new attachment style known as “fearful avoidant.” This style is characterized by a deep subconscious fear of betrayal rather than abandonment, leading to behaviors that are both anxious and avoidant. Individuals with this attachment style often attach quickly but then suddenly pull away, driven by a survival instinct to protect themselves from perceived emotional harm. 

It often seems easier to swallow the truth than to risk someone walking away because of it. Every time quiet is chosen over honesty, uncertainty is exchanged for control — but that kind of safety is just another form of fear. Speaking, even imperfectly, asserts that a person is still present, still trying. It’s the act of choosing aliveness over erasure. 

 This fear of expression is not solely internal; it appears in the cultural narratives people consume, where silence becomes a language of its own. “Call Me By Your Name” offers one of the clearest depictions of this dynamic. Elio’s restraint reflects a broader cultural hesitation — the belief that unspoken longing is safer than vulnerability. Stories like his reflect more than an individual struggle — they mirror generational patterns, illustrating how restraint, unspoken emotion and fear of vulnerability are normalized and even valorized in the culture that exists today. 

Elio and Oliver share an early moment of connection.

Understanding this tension is a kind of self-awareness. Silence can protect, but it can also distance; speaking can expose, but it can also connect. True connection depends on the willingness to speak, even when it feels risky. A study by the University of Arizona found that individuals who engage in deeper, more meaningful conversations are significantly happier than those who stick to surface-level exchanges, suggesting that openness is not just emotional — it's essential to well-being. For Elio, the question of “Is it better to speak or to die?” was never really about love alone, but about life itself — about the courage to exist out loud, even when it hurts. 

Maybe the question isn’t simply “Is it better to speak or to die?” — maybe it’s about what kind of life we want to live in between. Silence offers control, the illusion of safety. But it also dulls our edges, erases small pieces of who we are until we begin to vanish from ourselves. To speak is to take a risk — of rejection, of vulnerability, of being misunderstood — but it’s also to affirm our existence, to say that our feelings are worthy of being named. 

Recognizing the cost of silence — and the possibility that comes with breaking it — is itself a form of guidance. Because in the end, the real dying begins when we stop trying to be understood. As Kamal Korkees writes in his 2023 novel “Letters of The Observer,” “But in the end, we are all dead if we do not use the gift of speaking, for what will differentiate us from the dead if we do not?”