Silence can assist the transfer of thoughts, hinder the overall process of communication, or even generate new meanings; it can further isolation, communion, or enlightenment, depending upon its use. Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and Natsume Soseki’s The Three-Cornered World utilize such contradictory natures of silence as a communicative strategy. Both Austen and Soseki show a variety of characters who communicate despite or beyond words in their respective novels. In Sense and Sensibility, silence tends to be the token of the overarching desire for interaction and intimacy, as well as of the failure of communication within the fictional world. In contrast, silence in The Three-Cornered World not only aids or obstructs the conveyance of meanings, but also creates them by intentionally setting a margin in the spoken texts left to be filled. This paper will observe the different functions of silence as a communicative strategy in both works, discussing cultural backgrounds as possible catalysts and premises for the authors' strategic use.