Author: srizzo2

Stephanie Rizzo

I pledge.

384 Dis Lit final

Autism in Literature

Frankenstein. Anyone who hears this word can only think of one figure: a monster with green-tinted skin and huge hands that was intentionally created to be a figure that produces terrifying acts, at least that’s how the media portrays it. Frankenstein was written as a horror story. It is graphic and scary, yet also addresses a large issue in our society today: inclusion. The creation inflicts fear on people and is seen as an individual representing fear and disgust, it is literally named “the creation”. Looking at this work through a modern lens, we could easily see how the creation could be a representation of disability, specifically autism.

When Donaldson came into our class, she made some amazing points about how different disabilities are expressed in literature as opposed to in movies and social media. She talked about how the media portrays having a disability, such as autism, as beautiful. For example, she mentioned The Joker, who is usually played by an attractive actor and has a mental disability. Literature tends to show the negative side of having a disability. We can definitely see this in Frankenstein. An individual with a disability are not bad people by any means, but society sees them as incapable and not human; however, that’s not the case in most situations.

Our society tends to show disability as a quality in an individual as a negative trait. A stigma is automatically placed on those who are perceived as different, and this hinders their inclusion into society. As a whole, the world we live in has a general fear of disabilities, instead of seeing disabilities as a new perspective to look at things. Our communities today seem to have an issue with inclusion. People often do not know how to interact, or sometimes even coexist, with a person that has a disability, specifically autism. In Frankenstein, we see this when the village exiles the creation and forces him into hiding because they are scared of him and do not know how to react to him just because he looks different. We can see this in our schools today. It seems as though we always hear a new story about a problem with inclusion in schools. However, this worldwide problem with inclusion is not new. We can read about society’s fear of autism dating back centuries. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was first published in 1818, and 201 years later, we are still facing the same dilemmas in society: inclusion of individuals with autism. Although Frankenstein was a progressive book for the time, it was written when people still had a hard time grasping how to incorporate a person with autism into daily life. This problem often stems from the fact that able-bodied people inflict their own fears of acquiring a disability towards those who do live with a disability. Many people seek and find comfort in keeping themselves distanced from people with disabilities because they do not know how to act or treat a person with a disability. In Frankenstein, the people in the town are terrified of the creation and don’t know how to act around him. Mary Shelley portrays the creation as a monster that is basically incapable of existing as a human. Victor Frankenstein is disappointed in how his creation turns out when it comes to life, “I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created” (Shelley, 93).  He feels as though his creation looks like a vicious monster and further chooses to ignore and ostracize him based off his appearance. This is an issue we have in society today.

This can also be seen in Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay’s poem “Misfit”. He writes

“My hands, as usual, were flapping.

The birds knew I was Autistic;

They found no wrong with anything.

Men and women stared at my nodding;

They labeled me a Misfit.” (Mukhopadhyay, 7-11).

Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay is a modern writer. He also happens to live with what is known today as ‘low functioning/ severe’ autism, meaning he communicates nonverbally. He grew up in India and moved to America with his mother; he never had the chance to attend public schools and has been ostracized throughout his life. We can compare how Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay is treated in modern day to how the community in Frankenstein treated the creation. Because both individuals may look different from what our social standards consider ‘normal’ they must be scary and bad. Shelley wrote “… I had hardly placed my foot within the door before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused; some fled some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country” (Shelley, 184-185). Victor Frankenstein did not create his creation to be evil, however society saw it as a figure of destruction and terror. He was not built with the intention of being a horrifying murderous monster. Based on the fact that he was different then they were the community around him forced him into that role.

Some readers have expressed that the creation could be an expression of an individual with autism. He is non verbal, much like some people with autism and he seems to have no understanding of social cues. It seems as though Shelley could have written this in modern day and intentionally wrote the creation to have autism because of his language and social development, which connect to qualities of autistic language, even though autism was not a known term at the time it was written. In addition, it also shows the concern about the creature’s having a voice and being heard and how it is relevant to modern concerns about voice and agency in the autistic community. Many people with autism feel as though as they are misunderstood and as though some able bodied people do not understand their actual needs. The creation just wants to experience human connection and relationships, but is denied this opportunity when Victor Frankenstein refuses to make another creation to be a mate for the first creation. Victor is scared to make another because he does not want to have two monsters running around town, he thinks one is bad enough.

Another example is the piece “Communicate with Me” written by D.J. Savarese. It discusses how he feels in social situations and how he handles social interactions without over-stimulating himself. He said “Other kids who knew me in third and fourth grade asked if I can hear because my aide used to sign everything to me. Yes, I can hear, but getting nervous is ultimately deafening to me. What that means is that when I get fearful and desert the real world, I seem to detach my ears and hold my dear self hostage. At times like these, I cannot make sense of what you say, but most of the time I do hear and understand real voices” (Savarese, Communicate with Me). He talked about how individuals do not understand his needs and assume he can or cannot do some things, like learn in a general education setting or hear someone when they are talking to him. We’ve seen this throughout our studies this semester, how able-bodied individuals feel as though they have to make decisions for a person with a disability because they feel as though that person is ‘incapable’.

Society has shown that they have been scared of people with autism for years. One example of this is the amount of people who are scared to vaccinate their children because they feel it will “cause autism”. Parents in 2019 are more willing to let their children contract an infectious and possibly fatal disease than vaccinate their children. Although this study has been continuously proven false, parents would rather choose to believe a child with autism is worse than a child with a disease. This connects to society’s fear of disabilities and how the people live in fear of the creation in Frankenstein. It is clear people with autism are considered different, they can function in society and they should not be feared. Although people with autism may have limitations they are not incapable of functioning in society.

Word Count: 1375

Works Cited

Mukhopadhyay, T. (2010). Five Poems: Misfit. Disability Studies Quarterly,30(1). doi:http://www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1192/1256

Savarese, D. (2010). Communicate with Me. Disability Studies Quarterly,30(1). Retrieved from http://www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1051/1237Shelley, M. (2014). Open Road Media. doi:https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/umw/reader.action?docID=1799658

“Disability exposes with great force the constraints imposed on bodies by social codes and norms. In a society of wheelchair users, stairs would be nonexistent, and the fact that they are everywhere in our society seems an indication only that most of our architects are able bodied people who think unseriously about access.”

Last class, we discussed the article by Tobin Siebers and this quote really stuck out to me. We do live in a society that stairs are more prevalent than ramps. I feel like the statement that architects think unseriously about disabilities isn’t entirely true. However, it’s probably not in their list of top priorities as opposed to stucture and making sure things will stay up and be safe.

In our class we discuss how different people have a different view of their life with a disability and the works we are analyzing have provided us with a broad range of different points of view. We have seen it all from Victor’s creation in Frankenstein, George and Lenny’s relationship, the characters in Sula and Aisha Knight in “Until”. Some have a much more negatively skewed view than others. Everyone see’s disabilities in literature differently and our works show this through many lenses.
In Sula, Shadrack is suffering from a mental disability, similar to PTSD, because of his traumatic time spent fighting in World War 1. I would compare the way Shadrack feels to our conversation about John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. In class we discussed everyone’s right to decide for themselves their purpose in life and if they choose to live or not. I feel like Shadrack and George have a very similar way of looking at this topic. Looking at the stories, you can see based off George choosing to kill Lenny and Shadrack’s creation of “National Suicide Day”. These two characters have a very different view on living life with a disability from the woman in the Until- Deaf Poetry video.
The woman in the video takes us through her life story and touches on some specific elements of her past. She expresses her self-identity struggles. People tell her she “isn’t deaf enough” because her English is too good, “not black enough” because her mother is white, so she is mixed. People also said she “isn’t Jewish enough” because she has darker skin, that she is not straight because she is with a woman even though she has loved a man before. This woman is living with a physical disability as well as a mental disability and is choosing to look at her life in a much more positive way than Sula and George. She chooses to openly talk about the events that have shaped her into who she is today and is not afraid to express who she truly is. She chooses to take everything that has happened in her past and shift it into a positive point of view. For example, instead of using the term “rape victim” to describe herself, she chooses to say she is a “survivor.”
I feel like an important piece of this course is the way people view others with disabilities. If a person with a disability views themselves as a ‘burden’ then living life day to day will be difficult. I’ve been able to relate many discussions in this class to my Intro to Special Education course. In that class we talked about why ‘people first language’ is so important. Although some people don’t mind being addressed first by their disability, many other people prefer to be addressed first by who they are. For example, when discussing children in schools, it is more appropriate to say “(insert name) is a child in my class with dyslexia” as opposed to “(insert name) has dyslexia.”
Our society throughout time has become increasingly more accepting of individuals with disabilities. Instead of seeing them as “creatures” and “monsters” we cherish and appreciate people’s unique qualities and have learned to celebrate each and every person as special in their own way. Literature does a wonderful job of expressing how far we have come as a society and how we can view disabilities as unique qualities as opposed to burdening factors.
Word count: 577
I pledge. Stephanie Rizzo