32 Margins: A Journal of Literature and Culture The Rhetoric of Silence/ing: Hush Pramod Nayar University of Hyderabad Abstract act act act act: This essay argues that Hush, the graphic novel on child abuse, appropriates silence as a textual/narrative strategy to ‘speak’ of a subject on which society is usually silent. In medium that uses both word and image, Hush is radical in not using words at all. The silencing works at the level of the girl child’s body – which is constantly ‘enclosed’ – and thus serves as a visual representation of commonly accepted notions of the child’s protected (enclosed) body within the circle of the family but which is subverted because the enclosed body is the abused body. I then argue that the hand-over-mouth visuals embody the silencing of languages of protest in Hush, and serve to demonstrate the denial of sovereignty to the body. In this essay I argue that the denial of rhetorical sovereignty to an individual is to deny material sovereignty in toto. Keywo ywo ywo ywo ywords ds ds ds ds: Hush, graphic novel, child abuse, silencing, tropes, rhetorical sovereignty Manta Ray’s Hush (2010) is a one-of-a-kind graphic novel. First, it deals with the hushed-up phenomenon of child abuse. Two, it is a graphic novel without text or any verbal indices, relying entirely on the visual narrative. Critics of the graphic novels and comics journalism medium-genre have spent Margins: A Journal of Literature and Culture Vol. III, 2013