Guterson uses auditory imagery and a paradox in this passage to show that Ishmael feels left behind by time and overwhelmed by the quiet of the snowy world:

Ishmael sat inside for a brief time with his coat wrapped tightly around him. He listened to the world turned silent by the snow; there was absolutely nothing to hear. The silence of the world roared steadily in his ears while he came to recognize that he did not belong here [...] Some much younger people should find this tree, hold to it tightly as their deepest secret, as he and Hatsue had. For them it might stave off what he could not help but see with clarity: that the world was silent and cold and bare and that in this lay its terrible beauty.

The paradoxical auditory imagery in this scene turns the silence around Ishmael into something active and heavy. Silence is, by its nature, something that cannot be heard. It's the literal absence of sound. However, here the silence is so oppressive that it seems to “roar.” When Guterson writes that the “silence of the world roared,” he’s giving the quiet a noticeable presence. This is also not peaceful or empty silence as one might usually think of it. Instead, it presses down on Ishmael and fills his ears. Snow creates the silence, but it also seems to reflect what Ishmael feels inside. He cannot hear anything outside himself because, as he sits brooding in the cedar tree, his thoughts and feelings have taken over. The silence does not soothe him. Instead, it reminds him that he is alone.