Merleau-Ponty's ideas on the interiority of language address verbal and non-verbal communication dilemmas that have implications for how the existentialist subject interfaces with the Other. When considering the contemporary topic of emotional intelligence, many of Merleau-Ponty's ideas pointed the way for understanding the importance of this realm of human communication long before it became a subject of timely debate. In studying his and other scholars' ideas on the interiority of language one can develop a more plenary comprehension of how the existentialist hero in literature can be understood from an affective perspective.