Are Murderous Gestures Unfinished Thoughts?
People who kill by pantomime are working through their thoughts.
Posted May 17, 2026 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma
When I told a friend whom I'd voted for in 1980, she pointed her finger at my forehead and pulled an imaginary trigger. I’ve been killed symbolically before, playfully strangled by people who wrapped their hands around my neck and shook me a few times because they didn’t like something I’d done. Have you ever been murdered by gesture? How serious are the death wishes of people who kill by pantomime?
In most parts of the United States, pointing an actual gun at someone constitutes a crime , even if the gun isn't loaded. Because pointing weapons at people can make them fear for their lives, “brandishing” can qualify as a crime of assault. A finger representing a gun can’t hurt anyone physically, but emotionally, it can do powerful work. A murderous gesture can arouse anger and fear, maybe because it signals a desire to kill without making an actual threat.
People unfamiliar with sign languages underestimate the communicative power of bodies, especially the hands. Studies of early humans indicate that vocal language evolved only after evolutionary breakthroughs in the motor system enabled hominids to retrieve motor memories and control and model their movements (Donald 739-40). People’s ability to communicate by making sounds has evolved through exaptation of the motor system, exploiting structures and mechanisms that evolved to guide motions (Gallese and Cuccio, 11). Human language relies on motor function not just for the production of speech but for the organization of words into comprehensible phrases (Glenberg and Gallese, 907-8).
Given language’s dependence on the motor system, it should come as no surprise that gestures work as more than decorative flourishes. Rather than optional accompaniments to speech, hand gestures are essential to communication and cognition (Kelly and Tran, 586). Psychologists in the field of gesture studies regard bodily gestures not as the products of thinking but as part of the process (Kelly and Tran, 589-90). When people act out what they’re saying in a conversation, they are developing ideas even as they share them. Gestures are unfinished thoughts.
Like a gesture's ability to communicate a concept, its capacity to arouse emotions deserves more attention than it usually gets. Making an obscene gesture in anger can evoke violent responses. Less provocative hand gestures formed while speaking can convey the speaker’s emotional state (Kelly and Tran, 596). Because gestures reveal coalescing emotions and thoughts, they present emerging possibilities rather than "something internal and already formed” (Gallagher 128; Bolens 22). Gestures can promote understanding as long as one doesn’t take them as definitive statements.
In literature, where writers’ choices of words help readers to imagine gestures, an evocative description of a bodily movement can play a key role in a story. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice , Mr. Darcy’s startled response when he sees Elizabeth Bennett suggests strong emotion because it contradicts the controlled style of bodily movement Austen has established for him (Bolens 29). Many fiction writers call attention to their characters’ body language , especially their hand movements, because hands can communicate so much about people’s inner states.
Pointing an imaginary gun at a friend’s head and shooting would seem to convey a mental state quite clearly. If one considers recent research on hand gestures, however, the meaning becomes murkier. Given the political conflicts currently straining social bonds, shooting someone symbolically because of whom she voted for 46 years ago seems counterproductive. But if one interprets the mock-shooting as an angry flash in emerging thoughts, the murderous gesture feels less deadly. In the end, the thought that prevailed in my friend was not a death wish. “Why did you vote for him?” she asked.
Bolens, G. (2012). The Style of Gestures: Embodiment and Cognition in Literary Narrative . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gallagher, S. (2005). How the Body Shapes the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gallese, V., & Cuccio, V. (2015). “The Paradigmatic Body: Embodied Simulation, Intersubjectivity, and the Bodily Self.” In Open MIND . Edited by Thomas Metzinger and Jennifer M. Windt. Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group, pp. 1-23.
Glenberg, A. M., & Gallese, V. (2012). “Action-Based Language: A Theory of Language Acquisition, Comprehension, and Production.” Cortex 48, pp. 905-22.
Kelly, S. D., & Tran, Q. N. (2025). “Exploring the Emotional Functions of Co-Speech Hand Gesture in Language and Communication.” Topics in Cognitive Science 17, pp. 586-608.
Donald, M. (1993). “Précis of Origins of The Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16, pp. 737-91.
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Laura Otis, Ph.D. , is a professor of English at Emory University, where she teaches interdisciplinary courses on literature, neuroscience, cognitive science, and medicine. She is the author of Rethinking Thought .
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