Content Warning: The source text includes references to suicide and portrays a gruesome death. The author also uses offensive, outdated terminology for the Romani people, which this guide replicates only in direct quotations from the source material.

The hydraulic press is a central symbol in Too Loud a Solitude. It represents the oppressive forces of destruction, mechanization, and totalitarianism. At the same time, the hydraulic press also brings Haňt’a into contact with the books he cherishes, allowing him the opportunity to save those books or enrich his intellectual life by reading them.

The hydraulic press is an extension of Haňt’a’s existential burden, symbolizing the crushing weight of his life’s work and the inescapable nature of his role in the systematic destruction of knowledge. Nevertheless, Haňt’a becomes attached to his press and is saving money to buy the press when he retires. The press also allows Haňt’a to experience the beauty of destruction, which he grows to appreciate—he perceives that when something is destroyed, it morphs into another, newer thing.

The press is an all-encapsulating motif in the novella. Haňt’a is constantly worried about being crushed by the books he has amassed in his apartment, just as the press crushes paper.