Take-home Final Examinations

BEN FANCHER’S FINAL EXAM ESSAY BECAUSE THIS WEBSITE WON’T LET HIM LOG IN FOR SOME REASON. ASK AMANDA. WE’VE BEEN TRYING FOR THE PAST 41 MINUTES. :(

Ben Fancher

Dr. Foss

ENG 384

5/2/19

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a doctor, Victor Frankenstein, figures out how to reanimate the dead in a process that is never really explained to the readers. To test his theories, he creates a Creation who is compiled of the body parts of several different corpses. To Victor’s surprise, the Creation turns out to be not as attractive as he thought, despite being made out of random people’s body parts and Victor, not getting the child he expected, runs away and completely abandons his Creation and the closest thing he ever gets to a child. Victor fears the Creation and completely neglects raising him, just because the life Victor created turned out to be different from him. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,the Creation’s experience in the world is the same as that of many autistic children; they exist in a world that doesn’t know how to interact with them, and they have parents that don’t know how to raise them and might even feel like they were denied the child they deserved.

In Jim Sinclair’s “Don’t Mourn for Us”, there is a section entitled “Autism is not death”, in which Sinclair talks about the fact that the birth of an autistic child is not the death of a non-autistic child, since the child was never not going to be autistic. Parents grieve because they feel they were somehow denied a “normal” child. Sinclair says it best when he says “Much of the grieving parents do is over the non-occurrence of the expected relationship with an expected normal child” (Sinclair). Victor’s interactions with the Creation after he brings him to life show a parent struggling with the birth (I know the Creation was built, not born, but it’s still the creation of a child, so hush) of a child that they were expecting to be born different than the way they were. That is, they were expecting their child to be the same as them. Frankenstein says in chapter five that he “had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!” (Shelley, 43) Frankenstein had intended for his Creation to be beautiful, tall, and strong. The Creation turned out tall and strong, but Frankenstein was horrified by his appearance. He had worked himself up imagining the perfect creation; and he had made himself believe that his creation would be just like him, perfectly alike in body and mind and soul. What he got was not what he expected to get, but what he got wasn’t any sort of monster or alien, as Sinclair would say. Frankenstein succeeded in making something that is made of more human than any one human being on the planet. The Creation stands on two legs. He has hair, two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth. He’s very, extremely, ridiculously muscular, but so is Captain America, and we all love him. We also know that the Creation has an amazing capacity to learn, as demonstrated in chapters 11-16, where he learns an entire language and several things about what it is to be a human being. And yet, upon seeing the Creation in its finished form, Frankenstein says that “the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 43). Frankenstein’s dream was that of a perfect creation. He wanted to defy death and create a perfect human being. He expected that perfect human being, but he didn’t get it.

At this point, what Sinclair says that Frankenstein should’ve done was said to himself “This is not the child that I expected and planned for” (Sinclair). After saying this, Frankenstein should’ve taken time to grieve in PRIVATE, meaning NOT directly in the FACE of his creation, and then gone back to his creation and said to himself that, while this “child” is different from the one that he wanted, it is still deserving of care and attention, and since the “child” doesn’t have anyone like him to give him that care and attention, it’s Frankenstein’s job to take care of him. This is what Sinclair says that parents of autistic children need to realize. It’s what Frankenstein needed to realize. Yes, the Creation is different from you, obviously. He’s the size of LeBron James, he has yellow skin, and he’s scary looking, but he isn’t a monster. He’s just a challenge. The challenge is the same as raising an autistic child, since Victor would be raising a child that is different from the one he expected, and is different from him, but for a man who figured out how to combine parts of dead humans into one living one, it should’ve been a challenge well worth the effort.

In DJ Savarese’s “Communicate with Me”, Savarese writes about the struggles his classmates have with trying to communicate with him. DJ himself isn’t the problem, but his classmates say that they aren’t sure how to talk to him. DJ uses a facilitator to help him communicate, and when people see that, they don’t know whether to talk to the interpreter or to DJ. Or they see that DJ is autistic, and they don’t know how to deal with that either. His classmates don’t know that DJ sometimes needs to be signed at to communicate, since sometimes his hearing shuts down. Or they don’t know that he sometimes loses control of his body, resulting in his reaching out towards whoever he is talking to. People would easily be able to communicate with DJ, but they just don’t know the rules, or they don’t know that the rules even exist.

People don’t know how to interact with the Creation as well. They see that he’s a yellow skinned, unattractive, seven-foot-tall, muscular person, and they immediately start using words like “monster” and “ugly” and “ogre” for some reason. Victor’s brother, William, used all of these words to refer to the Creation all within the same breath which is, for one thing, very rude, but also, doing this means that he broke one of the rules of interaction with the Creation. The Creation is very much aware that the reason Victor abandoned him is that he thought he was horrifyingly hideous, having read as such from the notes he stole from Victor’s lab (Shelley 112). This makes the Creation particularly sensitive to any insult to his appearance, so calling him things like “monster” and “ogre” will result in…strangulation. People see the Creation and all they see is a giant scary monster, but they don’t see that he’s really just a human being. The only person that didn’t react with fear or yell at him or try to cause him harm was the blind man in chapter 15, and they had a very pleasant conversation, which shows that the only reason that the Creation doesn’t have more pleasant conversations is that most people see him and they don’t see someone to have a conversation with. They see someone to run away from or shoot at. They don’t understand that it isn’t difficult to have interact with this person, because they don’t try to learn how to interact with this person. But if they tried, they would discover an individual with a kind heart and a sharp mind, who is ready and desperate to share themselves with the world.

The Creation in Mary Shelley’s Frankensteinis not the child who Victor Frankenstein wanted, but he is the child who Victor got. He is equally deserving of love and happiness and care as a Creation with a beautiful, perfect face and amazing flawless skin. The challenges of having to raise the Creation are obvious, but they in no way mean that the Creation is some sort of monster who is impossible to raise. There is obviously a challenge in raising the Creation, and there is a challenge in raising autistic children. They might not be the children that their parents wanted, but they’re the children they got. They might seem hard to interact with, but you just need to learn how to do so. It’s a challenge, but it’s one worth undertaking. The happiness and success of a human life is something too valuable to decide to give up on, just because it’s a life too different from your own.

Word Count: 1375

Works Cited

Savarese, DJ. “Communicate with Me.” Disability Studies Quarterly, 2010, www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1051/1237.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Electronic Text Center. University of Virginia Library. https://web.archive.org/web/20110206045402/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/SheFran.html

Sinclair, Jim. “Don’t Mourn For Us.” Our Voice,vol. 1, 1993.

Rebecca Young’s Final Paper

Rebecca Young
Dr. Foss
ENGL 384
May 2, 2019

Of Mice and Misrepresentation: Infantilization and the “Idiotic Autistic” in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men

It is undoubtedly clear that literature in all forms acts as a vessel for societal beliefs and perceptions to be communicated through. Not only do the stories and characters in literature mimic those we see in real life, though, but the literary tales influence and reinforce societal beliefs as well. Thus, it is crucial to critically examine such works in order to gain an understanding of both the society reflected within that literature and the potential ways the literature can influence society on its own. This is especially true when considering works which discuss such critical topics as disability and its place in society. In the particular field of disability studies, the reinforcement of societal perceptions is key to any discussions of literary representation. We must, then, analyze such literature closely in order to best understand the roles of literary works in forming and perpetuating these perceptions. This can be done in many ways and for countless works of literature, but the case this essay will be examining is that of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, focusing on the representation of autism in Lennie’s character. By analyzing Of Mice and Men’s Lennie through the lens of autism, we can recognize and problematize the prolific stereotype of the burdensome “idiotic autistic,” especially in the context of infantilization.

Before critically analyzing the kinds of representation of autism seen within a text, one must first analyze whether or not autism is represented in the text at all. As autism is found across a broad spectrum, and is not always easy to diagnose, this can be a difficult process. Additionally, it can potentially become problematic to diagnose fictional characters with autism when it is not a diagnosis specifically given to them within the work. In doing so, one risks making decisions based on assumptions or stereotypes, which can then perpetuate negative beliefs of autism and disability in general. When done carefully, however, and with the understanding that one’s analysis can never be concrete, analyzing literary characters through lenses of autism can allow for an ultimately beneficial reading of the text. In the case of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, we see autism represented in the character of Lennie, one of the story’s two main protagonists.

Lennie’s character is clearly represented as disabled throughout the duration of the book; by reading him through a more specific, targeted lens, however, he can be seen as a distinctly autistic character. While the diagnosis of “autism” was not seen in the society in which Of Mice and Men was set, we can take contemporary knowledge of the autism spectrum and analyze Lennie in its context. In doing so, several of his specific character traits align with diagnoses of autism, such as his sensitivity to touch, challenges focusing on and following conversations, and difficulty acting in social situations. From this information, it is reasonable to analyze Lennie as a character with autism.

By reading Lennie as autistic, the entirety of Steinbeck’s book can be more effectively analyzed in the broader context of disability studies; this is specifically applicable to disability studies when considering the stereotype of the “idiotic autistic.” Throughout the book, Lennie is considered an “idiot” (among other terms) by essentially every other character he encounters. Because his communication and socialization skills are different from those of the “normal” characters within the book, he is perceived by others as simply incompetent. This perception of autistic individuals as “idiots” is an incredibly harmful stereotype when evaluated within the greater context of disability studies. Not only does it define the person by a single characteristic (their disability), but it further extrapolates assumptions about their existence based on this single trait. Thus, instead of viewing autistic individuals as whole people, they are diminished to something less human entirely, and automatically devalued as members of society.

In addition to being dehumanized as an alleged “idiot,” Lennie’s character is incredibly infantilized by those around him. For the same reasons that he is considered an “idiot” by other characters, he is treated like a dependent child. This further reinforces the belief that disabled individuals are burdens to those around them, another prominent stereotype of the disabled community. These are stereotypes which both reflect the society in which Steinbeck was writing and the society in which we currently live, as we can still see these beliefs in contemporary treatments of disabled individuals. In all of the aforementioned cases of stereotyping, individuals with disabilities are looked down upon as lesser, unintelligent, and wholly dependent beings. This is especially true for those with autism or intellectual disabilities and is understandably problematic, especially when considering the influence literature has over societal beliefs.

As stated previously, literature both mimics the society in which it was written and influences the society in which it is read. Thus, the treatment of a single character in Of Mice and Men has the power to affect the treatment of real individuals in the world around us. When characters like Lennie are viewed as pitiable and burdensome idiots, other individuals with autism are more likely to be seen this way as well, further reinforcing this detrimental cycle of stereotyping the disabled community. While it was “acceptable” to view disabled individuals in such a light during the 1930s, when this book was written, the story carries implications for our current and future societies as well. Without problematizing such harmful views like those seen in literature, there are no obstacles to these views being manifested and perpetuated throughout the rest of society. In a book so highly praised as “classic literature,” this is even more dangerous for the disabled and autistic communities.

The implications which literary representation has for the broader, contemporary disabled community are influential to say the least, and concerning when seen perpetuating problematic stereotypes like that of the infantile “idiotic autistic.” In examples of literature such as Of Mice and Men, this is even more detrimental to the disabled community, as this literature is considered noteworthy, valuable, and even progressive by many readers throughout the world. With this in mind, then, we must be willing to problematize such literary representations of autism. Otherwise, the disabled community will continue to suffer as a result of such societal understandings of individuals with disabilities, and our world as a whole will suffer until all individuals are accepted and valued as equal members of society.

Word Count: 1,059

I hereby declare upon my word of honor I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this assignment.

Bibliography

Chaloupka, Evan. “‘Intersubjectivity and Narrative Technique in Of Mice and Men and ‘Johnny Bear'”.” Journal of Narrative Theory, vol. 47, no. 3, 2017, pp. 403–26.

Hacking, Ian. “Autism Fiction: A Mirror of an Internet Decade?” University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 79, no. 2, 2010, pp. 632–655.

Hall, Alice. Literature and Disability. 2016.

Loftis, Sonya Freeman. Imagining Autism: Fiction and Stereotypes on the Spectrum. 2015.

Marlowe, Mike, and George Maycock. “Using Literary Texts in Teacher Education to Promote Positive Attitudes Toward Children with Disabilities.” Teacher Education and Special Education, vol. 24, no. 2, 2001, pp. 75–83.

Miller, Donna L. “Literature Opens Doors for All Children.” Phi Delta Kappan Magazine, vol. 94, no. 4, 2012, pp. 28–33.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Modern Library, 1937.

Clark Baranoski’s Final

Clark Baranoski

ENGL 384

Dr. Foss

2 May 2019

Throughout the years, autism has usually been viewed as a negative thing, a disorder that should be fixed and one that wrecks the lives of caregivers and families. Especially with nonverbal or nonspeaking individuals, outsiders often view them as somehow lost or trapped in their own bodies, or they assume that, because the autistic individual is not speaking their thoughts, they do not have complex thoughts to begin with. Several of our readings have proven this wrong and should be read by everybody with that mindset. Two readings that particularly drive the message home that autism is not some sort of tragedy that should try to be cured are Jim Sinclair’s “Don’t Mourn for Us” and “Cultural Commentary: Communicate with Me” by DJ Savarese.

So often, the focus on autism discussions is how hard it is for parents and other outsiders to deal with autistic individuals. While there are challenges for parents, such as the fact it is most likely very frustrating and upsetting for a parent who may not be able to calm their autistic child down, or may not know what their child wants, whatever challenge there is for the parent is undoubtedly not as important as the child’s. For example, if a crowded place like the mall is overstimulating with bright lights, loud noises and too many people, the child may experience sensory overload to the point where the environment is actually painful to be in. A trip to the mall would certainly be stressful for the child who is overstimulated, but most people would probably sympathize with the parent for having to deal with the effects of the child’s sensory overload, such as screaming or trying to run out of the mall, rather than consider how much of a horrible experience it is for the child. To non-autistic people, the child’s reaction seems like an overreaction because they are not bombarded with sensory stimuli like the child is and do not see how a trip to the mall could be so overwhelming and distressing. Many people who may not know about autism might think the child is simply being a brat for screaming.

While aspects such as sensory difficulties may make some aspects of life hard, one should not grieve the autistic individual’s existence or their autism. As Sinclair eloquently puts it, “continuing focus on the child’s autism as a source of grief is damaging for both the parents and the child, and precludes the development of an accepting and authentic relationship between them” (Sinclair, n.p.). Autism is typically viewed as a huge game-changer, and while Sinclair admits that there is grief over learning one’s child will not be what who the parents thought their child would be, no parent in the world can predict their child, autism or not. Some parents mourn autistic children because they are not the non-autistic child they envisioned (Sinclair, n.p.). But very few parents get the child they envisioned or fantasized about. Even if their child is not autistic, they could still turn out quite different from the parent’s expectations, such as active, sport-loving parents having a child who would rather sit inside and play video games or bibliophile parents having a child who will not willingly read a book. This is the same scenario in that their child is not who they expected and they may wonder how they will connect with their child who seems so different from them, yet an autism diagnosis is viewed as a tragedy. Yet a book-loving parent could think they may not be able to connect with their autistic child, only to find out their autistic child also loves books and they could connect through reading.

DJ Savarese offers a look into his mind that shows that he is aware and eager to connect with others despite outward appearances. When he does not greet people directly, it may appear he is not interested in people. This is hardly the case. Savarese does not greet people directly because it would be far too overwhelming to do so (Savarese, n.p.). It may appear to outsiders that Savarese, and other individuals on the autism spectrum, is not interested in other people, but he quite clearly is. He wants to make friends and get to know people, but the way he does so is a little different. To an outsider, it may look like his facilitator is guiding the pencil or his hand when he types, which could lead people to the assumption that Savarese is not the one typing at all and that his facilitator is communicating for him (Savarese, n.p.). Savarese’s perspective made me think of the autistic children I volunteered with at a summer reading camp a few years ago. Most were nonspeaking and communicated, like Savarese, by spelling out words on letter boards or typing. It often seemed like they were not listening to the middle-grade books we were reading out loud, because they were flipping through other books or off in the corner looking at photo cards. Yet when we asked a question about the book we were reading, they more often than not answered correctly, which proved they were listening the whole time. This helps prove Savarese’s point that autistic people are aware of what is going on around them, even if other people might not think they are aware or paying attention. The children I volunteered with could answer questions about how the characters were feeling, putting themselves in the character’s shoes and disproving the whole theory that autistic individuals lack a theory of mind. DJ Savarese also talks about how he may not hear people at certain times which is why he does not respond, and he may take a while before he can show he notices somebody (Savarese, n.p.) This helps show that autistic individuals are not merely ignoring others as some people think. Surprisingly, Savarese also tells the reader to ignore his body, including signs for “done” and “break”, when it seems counterintuitive. This may be quite true in Savarese’s case, but it could lead to people ignoring other autistic people when they indicate they need a break. If someone ignores the sign for “break”, then when the child really needs a break, they may be ignored like the boy who cried wolf.

These articles show that autistic people experience life in a different, unexpected way, and while some aspects are more overwhelming for some autistic individuals, their lives are just as fulfilling and complete as their typical friends and family.

Word Count: 1084

I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work.

Clark Baranoski

Works Cited

Savarese, DJ. “Communicate with Me.” Disability Studies Quarterly, 2010, www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1051/1237.

Sinclair, Jim. “Don’t Mourn For Us.” Our Voice, vol. 1, 1993.

Final exam

Odilia Rafael

Dr. Chris Foss

English 348

29 April 2019

Take-Home Final Examination.

Autism Within Of Mice and Men

So I forgot my password and it wouldn’t let me log in, so that was fun. Here’s my final!

Molly Avery

4/30/19

English 384

Professor Foss

Autism Within Of Mice and Men

In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men disability is shown throughout the entirety of the text in three of the most prominent characters. Although two of these disabilities are physical, mental disability is addressed in the story through the character Lennie. While readers appreciate the representation, they are never explicitly told what disability he possesses. He is often assumed to be intellectually disabled, but through close reading, one can conclude that Lennie is actually an autistic character.

Literary analysts are quick to shut down theories of Lennie being autistic due to the fact that Of Mice and Men was published before the first autistic diagnosis in 1943. While this does support the fact that Steinbeck did not write Lennie as an autistic character, it doesn’t make him any less of one. Most mental disabilities used to be classified as intellectual disability at the time the book was written. Since then though, doctors have broaden these terms to more accurately diagnose patients based off of the exact symptoms they display. Lennie shows multiple signs of having specific symptoms that fall on the autism spectrum, as is supported by the text. Despite what analysts say Lennie’s sensitivity to touch, lack of social skills, and incapability to control his body, prove him to be an autistic character.

Throughout the book Lennie has an obsession with touching various items that one could consider soft. This is first shown when Lennie finds a dead mouse in the very first chapter of the book. Multiple times throughout the first five pages Lennie attempts to discreetly reach into his pocket to pet the mouse, although this fails as George does eventually notice. Lennie argues that the mouse is a source of comfort for him, stating that he “could pet it with my thumb while we walked along,” (Steinbeck, 5). Although people on the autism spectrum can sometimes be sensitive to the things they touch, they can also adore the feeling of petting certain materials as well. This is shown through the story not just with the mouse in the beginning, but also with rabbits, dogs, hair, and clothing. Touching these things are usually comforting for an autistic person, and having it taken away may cause a distressed breakdown. Lennie shows the reader this when they learn about the backstory of what ran the two men out of their old town Weed. Back in their old work place, Lennie was fascinated by a young girls dress. Not knowing better, Lennie goes over to touch the fabric of the dress in a memorized state. The girl, obviously distressed by this unwanted interaction, begs him to let go. Lennie does not understand why he should, and is distraught at the idea that he cannot feel the fabric. He ignores the girls pleas, and continues to stroke it. The girl screams of attempted rape, and George and Lennie must skip town before harm can come to them. These two specific examples as well as other unstated ones prove that Lennie is sensitive to touch, whether it’s in a comforting way or disturbing way. Sensitivity to touch is just one of many common traits of an autistic person.

Another autistic trait that Lennie shows is a lack common social skills, that most men of his age would be aware of. A majority of people on the autism spectrum are usually socially incompetent in some way, and Lennie fits right into that. Of all the symptoms Lennie shows of being autistic this is the strongest. At the very beginning the reader learns of this incompetence when George has to give him specific instructions on how to act. “That ranch we’re goin’ to is right down there about a quarter mile. We’re gonna go in an’ see the boss. Now, look -I’ll give him the work tickets, but you ain’t gonna say a word. You jus’ stand there and don’t say nothing. If he finds out what a crazy bastard you are, we won’t get no job, but if he sees ya work before he hears ya talk, we’re set. Ya got that?” (Steinbeck, 6). Even with these instructions Lennie forgets them right away, and speaks up while they are meeting the boss for the first time. It is not only in the beginning of the story that the reader sees this though, it’s throughout the entire piece. Every single thing Lennie does is directly caused by his disability. Lennie doesn’t fit in with the rest of the workers at any point throughout the piece. When they go to play horseshoes, Lennie stays behind in the barn, and when the girl in Weed asks him to let go of her dress, he keeps petting it. George often has to take what people say to Lennie and repeat it to him through a filtered lens. Lennie lacks the ability to comprehend people’s demands and wishes, which is a trait an autistic person would show.

Another sign of proof that Lennie falls on the autistic spectrum is that Lennie fails to have control over his own body. He is described as a big man that often is not aware of his own strength. Throughout various points in the story Lennie often kills animals while trying to show them affection by petting them. He does this with mice, rabbits, and eventually Curley’s wife. Although many people can be unaware of their own strength, this is a symptom that points to autism. The worst of this problem occurs at the end when Lennie is petting Curley’s wife hair. She does not wish to have her hair touched and demands he lets go. Just like in Weed with the girl in the dress, Lennie does not understand why he must give up this simple pleasure and continues to stroke it. This angers her as she starts yelling at Lennie to let go. Not wanting George to be upset at her yelling, Lennie grows angry, and attempts to silence her. Unaware and incapable of controlling himself, he does this by accidentally killing her. Steinbeck describes her death quietly stating that “She continued to struggle, and her eyes were wild with terror. She shook her then, and he was angry with her. ‘Don’t you go yelling,’ he said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck,” (Steinbeck, 87). This shows that Lennie is incapable of controlling himself, just as some people on the autism spectrum are unable to fully control their body at times.

By closely reading the text, one can conclude that Lennie is autistic rather than intellectually disabled. Readers may continue to reject, but the topic is irrefutable. Lennie appears intellectually disabled to readers, is because intellectual disability and autism share some similar aspects in how they affect a person. This should not be confused as the two being the same though. Lennie is an autistic due to his sensitivity to touch, absence of common social skills, and lack of control over his own body.

I pledge… Molly Avery

Word Count: 1170

CitationsSteinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Modern Library, 1938.

Daley’s Final Essay

How The Myth of “High-Functioning” Autism is Hurting the Community

The rhetoric surrounding the autism spectrum has expanded from when it first surfaced, understanding of the condition has expanded along with it. Unfortunately, this rhetoric and these terms have often been coined by people who aren’t on the autism spectrum, because of how autism affects communication of the individual. This is explored in Ari Ne’eman’s piece “Dueling Narratives: Neurotypical and Autistic perspectives about the autism spectrum”, in which she takes a look into the different voices that try to craft the narrative of the autism community. At one particular point, she talks about how neurotypical people walk the line between love and supposed hatred of the people they know who are autistic. She talks specifically about how Carolyn See talks about her grandson’s autism. “They describe their autistic traits in a positive as well as negative lights, as See mentions her grandson’s singing-a clear sign of echolalia-shows. So why do they persist in demonizing autism as an exclusively negative force-not to mention marginalizing the autistic narrative of autism?” This trend of picking favorite parts of characteristics of autism (See’s son singing) and condemning other cases is most prominent in the terminology “high-functioning” autism and “low-functioning autism”. “High-functioning” being those who have less noticeable characteristics of autism, and “low-functioning” being those who have more. These terms not only create a rift of comparison in the autism community itself, but they also carry the connotation that “high-functioning autism” is the more socially acceptable diagnosis because it is more familiar to neurotypical people.

Ari Ne’eman best explains it when she states in the abstract for “Dueling Narratives: Neurotypical and Autistic perspectives about the Autism Spectrum” about how the language used to describe people with autism isn’t made for people with autism. “The current models of representation used in reference to autism in popular culture, policymaking and literature predominantly focus on how autistic individuals affect neurotypical society and neurotypicals.” When an autistic person is deemed “high-functioning”, it is because the characteristics of their autism are not as evident, in which they deem the erasure of the individual’s autism as them being a “high-functioning”. The ideation of a “high-functioning” autistic is heavily favored, which is made especially clear in how autistic people are portrayed in the media. If there is an autistic person portrayed, their characteristics are almost exclusively that they do not understand tone and are “adorably” uncomfortable with physical contact. In the even rarer cases that the characters autism is expanded on, the viewership is constantly reminded of how the character has to overcome their autism and how hard it makes their life. It sends the clear message that “high-functioning” is the right way to be autistic. When “low-functioning” is portrayed by the media, it is usually a heart-breaking movie with the autistic person used as a crutch for the character development of the main character, but they always make the characters life hard, and this sends a clear message to the public that this is the wrong way to be autistic, and that people who are “low-functioning” autistic are merely stepping stones to becoming a better person. While not all narratives about a certain type of person have to be the same, there has not been an in-between.

Because of the high and low terms, it sets up a scale of comparison between the autism community, which makes room for gatekeeping and hate within the community, which Ne’eman points out when talking about Temple Grandin, who is famously diagnosed with “high-functioning” autism, “is only opposed to a “cure” for people like her and Asperger’s.” There is no saying as to if Grandin would still take this stance if she had been diagnosed with “low-functioning” autism, but just showing this disdain for people in her own community shows how damaging the comparison is. Because of the terms, there is an obvious and noticeable bias as to what is preferred in society, and whether it is conscious or not, there will be an ingrained bias in whoever hears “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” because it is obvious which one is more acceptable.

There is no definite origin of the term “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” but there is no doubt that it was coined by a neurotypical person. The term originally applied to autistic people who “were deemed to be cognitively ‘higher functioning’ (with an IQ of 70 or greater) than other people with autism” (Wikipedia), however, since the term has been applied to autistic people who have shown trouble with communication instead of cognitive thinking, such as Amanda Baggs who was mentioned in Ne’eman’s “Dueling Narratives” in responding to Grandin’s want for a cure, who is an autistic blogger that primarily communicates through typing. She is shown to be able to understand and respond to abstract ideas and thinking cognitively, but because of her lack of traditional communication, she is labeled as “low-functioning”. The reason for this is because she is “low-functioning” compared to the ideation of neurotypical people. Simply branding her as a “low-functioning” human being allows for the invalidation of her communication type and for society to brush off trying to develop a type of communication with her.

Since the supposed “low-functioning” narrative is so easy to be dismissive of, campaigns such as AutismSpeaks or War Against autism can easily take advantage of the narrative to twist it into this tragedy that parents and family go through, and society has seemed to just accept it. Ne’eman touches on this when she discusses the documentaries made about the mothers who killed their autistic children because they believed it was for the best. “There exists substantial support for the idea that the murder of autistic children-and adults-is justifiable and constitutes a form of “mercy killings” that should be met with leniency and even encouragement.” The next of the piece has Professor Richard Sobsey disagreeing with this statement completely, but just the idea that this reasoning exists shows how much hate is hidden behind the idea of branding someone as a “low-functioning” autistic person. This kind of rhetoric would never surround a child in a wheelchair, or a child who was born mute. It is also doubtful that a child who was born mute or born without the use of their legs would ever be deemed as “low-functioning”, even if they were being compared to another individual who was only partially mute or on was able to move with the use of crutches.

With the increase of representation that autism is getting in media today, using problematic terminology along with the old ways of thinking about does more to hurt the community instead of trying to help it. The term “high-functioning” or “low-functioning” would never be used when talking about a person who was born deaf or blind, and this type of comparison would never be accepted if it were between two people who were in a wheel chair, so the fact that it is still deemed acceptable for people on the autism spectrum shows an obvious bias against them. In erasing the terminology about them and instead create terminology for them, it will take one step forward in creating a more inclusive and understanding environment for individuals on the spectrum.

Wordcount: 1193

I pledge that I have neither given nor received help on this assignment.

Citations:

Ne’eman, Ari. “Dueling Narratives: Neurotypical and Autistic Perspectives about the Autism Spectrum.” Neeman SAMLA 2007, The Autism Self-Advocacy Network, case.edu/affil/sce/Texts_2007/Neeman.html.

“High-Functioning Autism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-functioning_autism.

Alex Slaughter’s Final Paper

Alexandra Slaughter

Dr. Foss

English 384: Disability and Literature

April 30^th, 2019

Disability and Literature Final Paper

Autism is not always portrayed in the best way. Autism is a topic that many people are uneducated in. Due to the current economic status of our country, we, as a society, have begun to capitalize everything, which led to people being raised to seek out a profit in everything. On account of this, society has made arguments that it is a waste of money and space to treat disabilities. After learning more about autism, many literary texts and their characters can be better analyzed and understood through the lens of autism.

Disability plays a large part in the infamous novel, The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner. The Sound and the Fury is one of the many literary texts that can be better understood when reading it through the lens of autism. As the reader progresses through the novel, it immediately becomes apparent that Benjy Compson is different from the rest of the characters in the book. Within the first couple of pages, the reader is able to tell that the speaker of the section is different, which we later learn is Benjy, who has a disability. After having a selected focus of reading and learning about autism, Benjy Compson can now be read as being on the autism spectrum. Throughout the novel, there is a variety of reactions to Benjy and interactions with him that separate and divide the several family members and characters within the book.

In the first section of the novel, the narrative is presented by Benjy Compson, one of the characters discussed the most out of the entire Compson family. Throughout his narrative, you can distinguish fairly easily which family members treat Benjy the best and which ones want to profit off of him. Caddy is the one family member that goes out of her way to comfort and care for Benjy. Early on in the narrative, we learn that Caddy is one of the few people that can calm Benjy down. “Caddy put her arms around me, and her shining veil, and I couldn’t smell trees anymore and I began to cry.” (Faulkner 40) When Caddy goes to hug Benjy and he resists, it causes slight confusion for the reader. However, upon further reading, it is revealed why the one person that could calm him down actually upset him, even if it was unintentional. “She put the bottle down and came and put her arms around me. ‘So that was it. And you were trying to tell Caddy and you couldn’t tell her.…’” (Faulkner 42) After Caddy takes a bath and completely changes, we learn that it was the perfume that Caddy was wearing that bothered Benjy. Benjy is used to Caddy smelling like trees, so when she tries to touch him and he can not associate her with the smell he considers safe, he freaks out. When Caddy finally figures out what was wrong, she understands that he could not have told her what was wrong and tries to make him comfortable again. Near the beginning of his narrative, an instance in which Caddy went out of her way to make Benjy more comfortable is illustrated. “‘Hush, Benjy.’ Caddy said. ‘Go away, Charlie. He doesn’t like you.’ Charlie went away and I hushed.” (Faulkner 47) In this instance, we see Caddy attempting to get rid of one of the triggers upsetting Benjy in order to calm him down and understand what is wrong and what he needs. For some people with autism, by getting rid of whatever is triggering them to act a certain way, it can be helpful in calming them down. Caddy is sacrificing her relationship and possibly her safety to make Benjy calm down.

Jason Compson IV is one of the more mean and negative family members of the family. Jason IV does not care much for his brother and sees him as a burden. He continually makes comments about how Benjy is a waste of space and how he is going to send him to an institution as soon as he can. “Why not send him down to Jackson. He’ll be happier there, with people like him.” (Faulkner 221) At this point, Jason IV is speaking to Mrs. Caroline Compson, his mother, about Benjy and how they should send him to Jackson, where it is implied that there is a mental hospital. When you first read this line, Jason IV seems like he is simply looking out for the family, as if he wants what is best for everyone. However, we soon learn that this is not how he feels at all. “But it don’t take much pride to not like to see a thirty year old man playing around the yard with a n*gger boy, running up and down the fence and lowing like a cow whenever they play golf over there.” (Faulkner 222) Jason IV immediately begins to reveal how he feels about Benjy and the way he acts, which he views as childish. As he states, Benjy is a thirty year old man, who Jason IV views as acting like a child. Jason IV also believes that Benjy should be acting more his age and not outside playing with one of the boys of the help.

Subsequently, Jason IV reveals what he truly feels with regard to Benjy being sent away to Jackson. “I says if they’d sent him to Jackson at first we’d all be better off today.” (Faulkner 222) When analyzing this statement, “they’d” could be a few different people. Since Jason IV is talking to Mrs. Compson here, he could be referring to the hospital or the doctor who delivered the baby. He might be blaming the hospital for sending a baby with autism home with them. On the other hand, Jason IV is not one to shy away from how he truly feels, nor does he hold back when expressing his emotions. With this outlook, Jason IV could also be using “they’d” in reference to his parents. If this is the case, then Jason IV blames his parents for all of the issues they have had to deal with since Benjy has been a part of the family. He sees it as being their fault for not immediately sending Benjy to the nearest mental hospital in Jackson as soon as they realized that Benjy was different from everyone else in the family.

Additionally, we see Jason IV attempt to fix his mistake of the way he addressed the situation regarding Benjy and what should occur. “I says, you’ve done your duty by him; you’ve done all anybody expects of you and more than most folks would do, so why not send him there and get that much benefit out of the taxes we pay.” (Faulkner 222) He previously said that they would essentially have been better off if they had sent Benjy to a mental hospital earlier in his life and gotten rid of him altogether. At this moment in time, Jason IV is trying to redeem himself slightly in his mother’s eyes by complimenting her. He says that she has done all she could have and more than anybody would have thought she would. He attempts to make it seem like it would not just be beneficial to Benjy, but it would be beneficial to the family, because they have already paid for it by paying taxes.

The Sound and the Fury is novel that can be read on its own, and you will be able to understand it if you read carefully. However, when read again or looked back on after learning more about autism and autism studies, a whole new perspective is created when reading the character Benjy Compson. When first read, the reader can figure out that Benjy has a disability. Although when looked at again through the lens of autism studies, the reader is more so able to see the signs that Benjy might be autistic and can better understand the book with this knowledge. Autism studies is very beneficial when reading classical literature and better understanding some characters.

Word Count: 1344 I pledge. Alexandra Slaughter

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. Vintage International Books, 1990.

Britt Ingels Final Essay

DisLit Final Download

Britt Ingels

Dr. Chris Foss

ENG 384: Disability and Literature

30 April 2019

Word Count: 1000

Autism and Our Society’s Relationship With It

Year after year, more and more autism diagnoses are made. With the frequency of these diagnoses steadily increasing over time, one would be inclined to think that autism and those who fall with in its spectrum are steadily becoming a more normalized part of society. However, this is still not the case. Studies on and accounts from those living on the autism spectrum have substantially increased our understanding of it and the ways in which it functions similarly to and different from neurotypical life, so why is there still such a struggle to accept it? It seems as though this acceptance will not come until those who are not on the spectrum are able to stop finding ways to other autistic people from themselves.

Like most other disabilities and subcategories of neurodivergence, autism is typically viewed as something that makes someone “less than” others in society. In Melanie Yergeau’s “Introduction: Involution,” found in Authoring Autism, she discusses the ways in which our society frequently seeks out ways to dehumanize autistic people. After quoting rhetorician Todd Oakley’s thoughts on a supposed lack of understanding and functionality with rhetoric within the autism spectrum, Yergeau boils his ideas down to “one must be human in order to be rhetorical, autistic people are not rhetorical, autistic people are not human” (Yergeau, 11). Oakley’s quote, though problematic and somewhat horrifying – especially when put into more simple terms by Yergeau, holds opinions that are not all that uncommon in modern society. Society oftentimes looks at autistic people as unable to contribute to society or hold meaningful, intelligent conversations – a negative assumption that relies on neurotypicals to not make the equally negative base assumption that all autistic people are completely non-verbal. According to Yergeau, the years have seen a vast number of theories looking to point to reasons that should remove personhood from autistic people. These theories develop by locking on to various traits and behaviors found in autism – oftentimes, ones that are entirely harmless – and heavily pathologizing them with “clinically ornate buzzwords” (Yergeau, 11). As these theories gain relevance and notoriety in neurotypical society, they start to get introduced into medical canon, further increasing our societal fear or autism. This increased fear, developed almost entirely through unresearched, fear-mongering hearsay, has led people to go so far as to not vaccinate their children because of their inherent anxiety around autism.

Fear and dehumanization, though they may still be worryingly common, are not the only societal responses to autism. Through literature, film, television, and other forms of entertainment, fictional depictions of autistic people have been some of the major reasons for positive responses. For instance, the introduction of the autistic character Julia on Sesame Street has created both positive representation for young autistic viewers as well as a positive view on autism for neurotypical children who may come into contact with children who are on the spectrum. However, not all of these fictional depictions are as “positive” as they appear to be. When most people think of “good, positive” representation of those on the autism spectrum in film and television, their minds first bring up examples like A Beautiful Mind and The Good Doctor. These popular depiction feature characters who experience savant syndrome, a condition in which someone who is otherwise mentally disabled shows outstanding abilities in certain skills, oftentimes far beyond the average for neurotypicals. The subject of A Beautiful Mind, John Forbes Nash, Jr., while not autistic, was heavily skilled in mathematics despite complications from schizophrenia and finished his lengthy, fulfilling life as a Nobel Laureate in economics. The Good Doctor’s Dr. Shawn Murphy is constantly shown figuring out medical procedures and answering the health questions of various hospital patients far more easily than his older, more experienced, neurotypical colleagues despite his struggles with autism. The overwhelming popularity of these types of portrayals stems from the fact that they are essentially “inspiration porn” to the abled viewer. Neurotypical audiences love tuning in, week after week, to The Good Doctor, knowing that they will feel uplifted and inspired watching Dr. Murphy wow his constituents and save lives with the power given by his savant syndrome. Beyond all of the problems that come along with this “inspiration porn” aspect, a greater problem lies in the fact that society is falling in love with a version of autism that hardly exists. Savant syndrome is extremely rare, not just for autistic people, but for the mentally disabled in general. It is not a statistic that has increased proportionally with the steady increase of autism diagnoses, ergo making it as unrealistic of a portrayal as the dehumanizing theories.

So, if one respected outlook on autism is too negative, and the other too idealistic and positive, how do we gain a better, more accurate understanding of autistic people? The answer is simply just listening to them rather than seeking out theories and pieces of entertainment created – oftentimes by neurotypicals – about them. In “Introduction: Involution”, Melanie Yergeau speaks about her childhood experiences, crying rarely in infancy, struggling to make friends, becoming hyper-fixated on AAA maps, and how all of these experiences began to make sense after her autism diagnosis as an adult (Yergeau, 1). Yergeau also uses her writing to disprove both the negative and the overly positive views, showing that she is not only intelligent, eloquent, and capable of engaging in in rhetoric, but also just as regular of a person as any neurotypical. She is neither the bellowing, unintelligible Benjy Compson of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, nor the graceful savant that is The Good Doctor’s Dr. Murphy.

Gaining a deeper and more accurate understanding should not stop at just reading Yergeau’s writing, however. One person’s autistic experience is not every autistic experience. There are savants and there are nonverbals and there are many, many complexities that lie between. The best way for a predominately neurotypical society to truly accept and understand autism as just as intrinsic as neurotypicality is to give a platform to autistic people of any condition.

I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work. Britt Ingels.

Works Cited

Yergeau, Natalie. “Introduction: Involution.” Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. Accessed 30 April 2019

A Criticism on Julia Rodas’s “Introduction” to Autistic Disturbances

Morgan Smith

ENGL384-02

April 30, 2019

Word Count: 1,091

I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized help on this assignment. – Morgan Smith

A Criticism on Julia Rodas’s “Introduction” to Autistic Disturbances

Sometimes self-diagnosis is all a person has regarding their mental health. Visits to the doctor’s office are expensive enough as it is without the added pressure of seeing specialists that are, more often than not, far out of town. On top of that, doctors are misdiagnosing or just not listening to their patients alarmingly often. For a real-life example, an early-twenty-something goes to the doctor because she’s listless, lethargic, doesn’t find joy in the things that normally brought her joy, is irritable, easily distracted, forgets things often, and experiences nausea when dealing with large groups of people to the point of scratching her skin. She rocks back and forth in her chair. Her leg shakes and bounces when she’s not sitting on it. She doesn’t sleep at night. The doctor suggests she has depression and anxiety. The doctor gives her Prozac.

There is improvement for maybe six months. Then worsening. The doctor doubles the dosage.

Repeat. The doctor adds Wellbutrin to her treatment.

Repeat. The doctor removes the Prozac, doubles the Wellbutrin.

Repeat. The doctor sends her to a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist outright ignores everything she says and gives her Trazodone for the insomnia.

No one thinks that the depression, the anxiety, the restlessness, the sleeplessness could all be symptoms of something larger.

The twenty-something is twenty-five years old when she finally sees a therapist, and twenty-six when the therapist suggests she has ADHD. She’s elated. She finally has answers. She talks to her primary doctor and spends one terrible, horrible month on Strattera before switching to Intuniv, and the Intuniv is working.

This twenty-six-year-old is lucky, even though her doctors weren’t listening to her at first. This twenty-six-year-old’s best friend didn’t get her autism diagnosis until she was twenty-two—and she fought tooth-and-nail for it, starting with self- and peer-diagnosis before she went to a doctor. Not to mention, sometimes the patients are right, and the doctors are wrong. After all, the doctors don’t live with the patient twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, year after year after year. The doctor sees the patient anywhere from 15-60 minutes at most once or twice a month.

Often times, self-diagnosis can provide the answers one needs without risking their autonomy and safety in larger society—the ostracization, the expectation to conform to autistic stereotypes, the judgmental side-eyes of being out in public with an “obvious” mental illness. The self- and peer-diagnosis can provide a community for the person who thinks they might have autism but is afraid of the systemic, social backlash of being autistic in a society that deems autism a defect to be cured.

So, when Julia Rados claims that she could seek out a diagnosis if she wanted to, and finds self-diagnosis as culturally appropriative and predatory, she gives those who can’t afford a diagnosis or are afraid of losing their rights and autonomy a very real reason to stay afraid and to borrow a term from the queer community, to stay in the closet. And yet, Julia Rados insists on writing her book about—what? Finding autism in classic, Victorian texts even though she claims that retroactive diagnosis and diagnosing fictional characters is dangerous and predatory? Perhaps she’s writing specifically about non-autistics reading autism into fictional characters, but what about autistics who want to find themselves in their favorite characters? Who want representation? And yet she claims that it’s dangerous and that self-diagnosis can be exploitative.

In claiming that self-diagnosis is predatory and exploitative, Rodas ostracizes those who cannot seek out an official diagnosis due to affordability or fear—or both. In the same paragraph she ostracizes the poor and the afraid, she claims that she has the privilege to get a diagnosis if she wanted to. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to “pass” as either autistic or allistic. In essence, she’s claiming she wants to be both or neither. Which reeks of classism—she’s implying she can afford a diagnosis and is confident that she’d have a positive one, but doesn’t want to pass, ergo, she’s engaging in that exploitative behavior she warns against when she talks about wanting to “find” autism in her favorite classic Victorian texts, and even mentions Uta Frith’s suggestion that the iconic Sherlock Holmes is autistic long before Benedict Cumberbatch came on the BBC with his heavily autism-coded Sherlock.

Throughout the introduction, Rodas seems to vacillate between wanting to “find” autism in her Victorian texts while warning against the game of “pin-the-diagnosis-on-the-fictional-subject” and the dangers of self- and retroactive diagnoses. She wants to have it both ways, but she can’t. Not if she defends the position that it’s dangerous and bordering on “evil” stereotypy. It’s unclear what her actual goal in her introduction is, whether to say something like “hey, autism has always been around in both real life and fiction” or to say, “hey self-diagnosis is dangerous and exploitative so let’s not do it, maybe.” The former could be a positive affirmation that autistics have always been around and will always be around, but the latter is potentially insidious in that claiming that people can only be autistic if they have a doctor tell them they are—which excludes people whose doctors refuse to listen to them and the people who simply cannot afford a doctor in the first place (a group largely made up of people of color).

Rodas’s claim that “Autism should be for autistics” (23) might seem like a road paved with good intentions, warning against the dangers of cultural appropriation and stereotypy, but it’s also a claim of misogyny and racism: people of color have historically been unable to afford doctor visits and doctors have historically refused to listen to their assigned-female-at-birth patients, claiming it’s all in their head or they’re just hysterical. Whatever it is Rodas is trying to claim is lost in her meandering and undermined by her exclusionary tactics. Often, self- and peer-diagnosis is the only thing a person has. To bar them from a community that Rodas declares she is not a part of reeks of gatekeeping tactics. Because she claims to not be autistic, has no knowledge of any relatives who are autistic, and has never sought out diagnostic services even though she’s reasonably certain she could get a positive diagnosis (23), she has no standing in the community to tell others who do and do not belong. Even if she did have a positive autism diagnosis, she doesn’t speak for the community at large. She, as an individual, does not get to tell others who are allowed in the larger community.

Relationships in Troubleshooting: Tom Webster, the Mistake, and CAN

Michelle Zillioux

ENG 384

Final Essay

30 April, 2019

I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized help on this assignment. Michelle Zillioux

Relationships in Troubleshooting: Tom Webster, the Mistake and CAN

In Selene de Packh’s novel, Troubleshooting, the protagonist, Dax Archer, often finds herself at the mercy of her circumstances. As an autistic woman in a society that devalues her assistance, Dax must navigate her circumstances in order to survive. She is often presented with fewer options to do so due to her lower status within her society, and therefore is regularly pushed to rely on others despite being shown as a perfectly capable and independent individual throughout the novel. Because of this, she encounters and suffers several relationships through the course of the novel with characters and groups who act as though they care for her when, in reality, they only have their own best interests in mind. Paralleling how advocacy groups such as Cure Autism Now (which has now merged with Autism Speaks) treat autistic people, these relationships, which include those she forms with Tom Webster and the Mistake, attempt to “cure” her, strip her of her agency and devalue her existence as a human being.

According to Ralph James Savarese in “Toward a Postcolonial Neurology: Autism, Tito Mukhopadhyay, and a New Geo-poetics of the Body,” the advocacy group CAN “was all too happy to champion Tito as evidence of what is possible for ‘severely autistic children, [but] its primary focus was to raise funds to develop a cure […]” (6). Although Tom Webster endures as one of the more empathetic characters in dePackh’s novel, he ends up emulating this statement at times as he supports Dax’s maturation and assimilation into society in the hopes that she will learn to suppress her autism. A father figure to Dax after she escapes from Thunderbird Mountain and seeks refuge among his family, Tom gives her access to opportunities that she had been barred from in the past due to her being an autistic woman, including a chance at an education from a trade school and access to a job afterwards. Due to these opportunities, Dax is able to mature and grow as a person, and, at first, Tom appears to readers as an ally who supplies her with accessibility. However, it later becomes apparent that Tom has attempted to force Dax to overcome her autism while maintaining control over her life in a similar fashion to CAN.

Tom’s intentions become clear towards the end of the novel when he expresses his disapproval over Dax’s sexual relationship with Chill Dark: “You were doing so well, Dax. You were beating the autism” (dePackh, 211). Here, after seeing that Dax has strayed from the path he intended for her, he reacts negatively because he has lost control over her. It becomes clear that, although he cares for as a father, his intentions in giving her access to responsibility over non-automatic bill payments, a home and a job, were to integrate her into society as someone who beat or suppressed her autism so that she could pass as allistic, or “normal.” Whether these intentions are born from father-like love or not, they disregard Dax’s agency over herself while diminishing her autism to something that must be overcome, just as when advocacy groups like CAN and Autism Speaks pretend they are acting in the best interests of autistic people despite really only seek to cure them.

Later in the novel, Dax also forms a relationship with a man she role-names the Mistake, who, similar to Tom, displays initially helpful behavior that is misleading and eventually becomes detrimental to Dax. However, The Mistake, who begins as a seemingly kind and patient character (even with Dax’s narration warning otherwise), ends up being a far more violent and antagonistic character than Tom. Similar to CAN’s beliefs considering autistic people, the Mistake fails to respect Dax’s existence entirely; at times, he even sees her autism as an embarrassment, such as when he says, “You. Have. Humiliated. Me. for the Last. Fucking. Time — Freak!” (155) after she has an emotional outburst at CareWell. Here, in expressing his view of her as a “freak,” he is essentially admitting that he believes her status as an autistic person makes her inferior to him. This is a belief that may have influenced his violence against her because, if he believes she is inferior and a “freak,” then he most likely views her as undeserving of being treated as a human being, just as CAN’s belief that autism is a disease leads them to dehumanize autistic people and search for a cure to eradicate autism.

After a while, The Mistake also slowly renders Dax reliant on him. After the two are forced to live together following an incident at their workplace and the destruction of his home, the Mistake begins to ease his way into Dax’s life by helping her pay her bills and serving as a source of protection. Additionally, the Mistake’s status as an allistic and able-bodied man makes it easier for him to take control, as Dax legally has few rights. Eventually, Dax, herself, starts to both believe she relies on him and owes him. This is a state of mind that ultimately makes her feel trapped in her relationship with him: “As a solitary autistic, I needed him and he knew it” (115). Comparably, famed autistic self-advocate Tito Mukhopadhyay, along with his mother, felt trapped after they were manipulated and taken advantage of by CAN, who served as their sponsor and continually “policed [their] every move, prevented opportunities for interviews, and signed away rights to [their] story on [their] behalf” (Savarese, 6-7). Mirroring this behavior, the Mistake strips Dax of her independence by preventing her from driving and by controlling her bank account so that only he can make use of her money. He therefore acts almost like an analogy for the abusive and controlling behavior of advocacy groups like CAN.

In writing Dax’s relationships with Tom Webster and the Mistake so that they depict the different kinds of negative relationships autistic people have experienced in their lives, Selene dePackh forms a poignant analogy for the treatment of autistic people in both the world of Troubleshooting and in real life. Tom and the Mistake are both major influences over Dax throughout most of the novel who have been thrust into her life, whether she likes it or not, due to her circumstances as an autistic woman. Just as advocacy organizations like CAN and Autism Speaks often market themselves as benign organizations who seek help for autistic people when they are, in reality, searching to eradicate autism, Tom tries to help Dax in a way that ultimately serves his own beliefs and interests over hers. Furthermore, the Mistake takes advantage of Dax’s circumstances and devalues her existence by abusing her and controlling many aspects of her life, thus paralleling CAN’s real-life treatment of Tito Mukhopadhyay. Selene dePackh’s crafting of Dax’s relationships with these two men therefore serves as a parallel to the real-world treatment of autistic people, as best characterized through so-called autistic advocacy groups’ views on autism.

Word Count: 1157

Works Cited:

dePackh, Selene. Troubleshooting. San Francisco: Reclamation Press, 2018.

Savarese, Ralph James. “Toward a Postcolonial Neurology: Autism, Tito Mukhopadhyay, and a New Geo-poetics of the Body.” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, vol. 4, no. 3, 2010, p.p. 273-289.