Alex Slaughter’s Final Paper

Alexandra Slaughter

Dr. Foss

English 384: Disability and Literature

April 30th, 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 FinalDownload

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.

Makayla’s Final Paper

Makayla Harrington

Dr. Foss

English 384

April 30th, 2019

1152 Words

Autistic Narratives Should Be About Autistic People

When speaking about communities that are too often misunderstood, the specific narratives that readily available to outsiders are crucial to the community, and directly impact how society views them. Stories about autism are often not centered around the autistic person themselves, but the caretaker, or some other person in their life. Historically speaking, parents of autistic children have not, by any means, had it easy. There are some reasons why parents are often centered in autistic discourse and stories. There was once a very popular and now outdated, but still relevant belief that parents are the root cause of their child’s autism. Additionally, there’s the aspect that parenting an autistic child, like most other disabled children, is sometimes harder and requires more/different care than a non-autistic child. But those two things still don’t justify the rising amount of parents victimizing themselves, because when they do that, they’re failing to make opportunities to speak about their autistic child about the child themselves. However, I believe that while parenting an autistic child is hard, and a roller coaster, and worthwhile, and whatever other adjectives one can list, it’s ultimately not about the parent, but the child. And the constant shifting of narratives from being about the parent instead of the autistic child themselves ultimately hurts autistic people, and is unjustified.

Stuart Murray’s book, “Autism,” is an excellent source on multiple topics involving autism, but in chapter nine of part two, he talks about the history of psychoanalysis used for research and treatment. In the nineteen sixties, one of the most common thought, “causes” for autism was having distant parents. The most influential doctors who advocated for this now disproven theory was Bruno Bettelheim. To quote Murray on Bettelheim, “Bettelheim’s attitude towards parents was savage. He claimed that they prevented ego development in their children because of their own inadequacies, and his continual use of language that stressed parental ‘coldness’ or ‘rigidity’ produced despair among those who had children with autism” (Murray, 57).  This is now an outdated and disproven approach, and as a society we have once again gone back to understanding that we don’t know what causes autism. However, it was so widely spread in the disability and psychiatric communities back in the day, that the effects of this line of thinking are still present in modern times.

While the theory that distant parents are what cause autism isn’t nearly as common now, it’s one of the first huge movements in the autism community that take the control, and the story, away from the child. We know that this dangerous line of thought contributed to mindsets that are still present today, but it might have also contributed to the start of the community justifying and being complacent in the focus being shifted from autistic children to their parents. In the present day, we still really don’t have any evidence about the cause of autism. However, hopefully whatever future research and conclusions are made in the future shifts the focus back onto the autistic person, instead of their caretaker, thus producing more accurate results.

In households belonging to autistic individuals, especially “low-functioning” or younger autistic people, the parents are the decision makers. They decide about what therapies, and more often than not, what strategies and approaches are taken to better teach and integrate their child into society. It’s a complicated issue, because shouldn’t the parents get a say in what happens to their child? The answer is yes, they should, and there should be a place for them to talk about shared experiences with other parents of disabled children, and tell stories to raise awareness. The issue comes in when the majority of speaking opportunities- and almost every day is a speaking opportunity, only on a much smaller scale- are dedicated to parental struggle caused by having an autistic child. This is particularly harmful when the parent’s viewpoints of how autism has affected their family are consistently and constantly negative, and/or drastically different than the autistic child’s perspective of how living with autism has affected them.

To quote Murray again, “Far too often, the heat and light created by autism controversies are disassociated from the realities of those who have the condition, and a lot of energy is wasted that could more profitably be used in thinking about actual autistic lives” (Murray, 76). But how does that happen? The reason why the discourse strays away from how to improve the lives of people with autism, and understand it better, and onto things that many autistic people don’t care to put research funds towards, like finding a cure, is because autistic people aren’t the ones speaking or making the decisions. Instead, it’s the caretakers, or someone who knows someone with autism. Even sometimes people who aren’t really close with anyone who has autism. This is dangerous because due to the lack of narratives from those with autism, the stories that the general public hear are often all negative. The stories become about how it’s hard to dress their child, or go to public gatherings, or do various things, and not about how often the child is happy, or their interests, or what it’s like to be in their shoes. This makes it harder, and less likely that people who have not known anyone with autism to view autistic people as people, becauses instead of being represented as a complex person, they’re seen as one-sided, static children who cause problems, which is a dangerous way for society to see them,

Then, it gets to the question of how and why are parents inclined to tell their own story instead of their child’s. Parenting a disabled child can come with a lot of frustration, just like any other child. It’s natural to want to talk about how autism affects them personally, instead of their child. Another important thing to consider is the aspect of “signing up for” disabled parenting. Excluding adoption, the majority of autistic people’s parents didn’t expect to have a disabled child, and so the unexpected amount of care that they need can leave parents feeling exhausted and burnt out. But, when one has a child, they’re accepting the chance of having a kid who isn’t exactly how they expected.

In conclusion, the parents of autistic children have a huge role in the community, and it’s crucial that the narratives that they tell are about their children, painting them in a complex light. Through being more conscious about how they’re advocating for and talking about their child, they can entirely change how society views the average story of an autistic child’s life. While parents of autistic children have been harmfully, and wrongfully been criticised in the past, and potentially have more difficult times being a parent, there’s still no reason good enough to justify why the majority of autism narratives being spread should be centered around the parent, instead of the autistic person themself.

Works Cited

Murray, Stuart. “Autism.” Academia.edu, Routledge, 2012, www.academia.edu/1160813/Autism.

I pledge, Makayla Harrington

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.

Carly Rose Hughes’s Final Paper [Final Exam Papers]

Carly Rose Hughes
Dis/Lit Final, Prompt #2
Dr. Chris Foss
April 30th 2019
Word Count: 1,200
The True Definition and Value of Autism: A Descriptor of Unique Traits
Prompt: (2) a thesis-driven argument relevant to disability studies that engages substantially with one or two of the theoretical pieces from the final unit.

Autism shows itself in different ways with varying levels of severity among the people who identify as having it. This is because autism encompasses a spectrum of traits, making it a sort of umbrella term for behavioral and social functions that society perceives as deviating from the “norm”. Because of this, people with and without autism alike can have differing experiences with autism, which can often lead to conflicting views and opinions of what an autism diagnosis means. This confusion about autism is made worse by the fact that Autism is hard to diagnose because of its lack of concrete , reliable characteristics. There is no agreed upon definition of autism even in a medical sense , causing many people, especially parents, to view autism as a disease that needs to be cured for a child to have a happy and successful life. This attitude is shown in Julia Rodas‘s Introduction and “Un-Conclusion” of ‘Autistic Disturbances’ ,with descriptions of PlayBoy model Jenny McCarthy’s parenting of her child with autism. Through analysis of her parenting choices combined with other autistic scholar’s view points, it is clear that it is not autism is not what needs to be cured for people with autism to be successful, but instead it is society’s view and treatment of people with autism that needs to be rethought. In this way, if Autism’s definition were societally re-framed away from its negative and nebulous medical connotations and instead viewed as a valuable personality trait which makes a person who has it who they are; harmful misunderstandings of autism would be eradicated and relationships between people with and without autism could be enhanced.

To fully understand society’s perpetuated misconceptions of Autism, it is imperative to have knowledge of the uncertainty of diagnosis which contributes to a general societal fear of a diagnosis. Autism is problematically associated with medicine in the way that people assume that since it is diagnosed, it must be a disease, and if it is a disease, it must be cured. However, “even at the beginning of the 21st Century, we don’t know what Autism is,” (Rodas/Murray). This is firstly because autism does not show up as a concrete, visual, or biological difference in any medical test. Instead, diagnosis is based on analysis of a person’s behavior. Author of Autistic Disturbances backs this up, saying: “..we have no way to measure it [Autism] but by its external manifestations,”. Knowing that diagnosis is closely tied to behavioral qualities, it is clear that Autism “…belongs to and is entwined with individual autistic identities”,(Rodas, Autistic Disturbances) meaning that there are many types of traits that can be associated with autism, and different types of people can have it. This reality is most likely because autism is part of a person’s individual identity, and is just a way to describe behaviors that can be seen as unique. As more people come to a doctor seeking an explanation for certain behaviors, more behaviors and actions become associated with a diagnosis of autism, contributing to further confusing nebulous-ness, which contributes to a higher amount of problematic fear of autism.

The description of Jenny McCarthy’s view of her son Evan’s autism diagnosis demonstrates this problematic fear of diagnosis, because her view directly ties fear of diagnosis to a fear of her son’s personality by subconsciously demonstrating how autism is a part of his identity. McCarthy says that her son was labeled autistic based on “…the boy’s play in the doctor’s office,”. (Rodas, Intro to Autistic Disturbances) This shows how tied to behavior diagnosis is, proving assertions from the last paragraph. Rodas continues : “When the doctor reveals to [McCarthy] that such behavior is characteristic of autism, McCarthy, her “heart shattered” observes “Everything I had thought was cute was a sign of autism,’”. This is obviously a reaction of grief in McCarthy, however, it is not based in reality. Her feelings imply that her son’s value does not exist anymore because his personality is one of what she perceives to be disease. In this way, she is grieving “…over the loss of the normal child [she] had hoped and expected to have.” (John Sinclair ‘Don’t Mourn for Us’) However, she had not thought that her son’s characteristics were bad or significant of sickness before the diagnoses, which drives home how flawed the associations that people without autism make are when it comes to a diagnosis of autism. Because Evan’s diagnoses was so clearly tied with his personality and his diagnoses was “heart shattering” to McCarthy, it seems that this mother it seems that to McCarthy, Evan’s autism is significant of Evan’s lack of personality, or at least lack of a valuable one. In this way, it is obvious that when addressing autism behavioral functions in lieu of a diagnoses, it is often times the parent’s conception of what autism is that needs to change so that a person with autism can receive the most fulfilling relationships with the people around them possible, and therefore the most fulfilling life possible. John Sinclair supports this by saying that “This grief over a fantasized normal child needs to be separated from the parent’s perceptions of the child they do have: the autistic child who…can form very meaningful relationships.. If given the opportunity,”.(Sinclair, Don’t Mourn for Us).

Since autism is a description of someone’s behaviors and personality, it is an unalienable part from who they are. An autistic person’s actions are natural to them, and are worthy of love and support, especially from their parents. The autistic part of their identity is essential to making them who they are. A quote that captures this idea can be found in the novel Troubleshooting by Selene dePackh, when main character with autism Dax/Scope describes her view of herself : “Autism is what I am…it’s not something I can beat any more than I can beat being small…”(dePackh, page 211). So just like a physical characteristic, autism is just another valuable aspect of a person’s identity. In this way, Evan McCarthy still had the same traits with and without the autism diagnosis: the autism diagnosis does not change who he is or what value he should have. He is still the same “cute” child his mother Jenney thought she had. All of this is directly supported by the main idea of John Sinclair’s piece “Don’t Mourn For Us”, saying :

“Autism isn’t something a person has, or a “shell” that a person is trapped inside. There’s no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate the autism from the person–and if it were possible, the person you’d have left would not be the same person you started with.”

If society’s view of autism wasn’t viewed through a misconstrued medical lens; parents such as Jenny McCarthy would not be as affected by their child’s autism diagnosis. Parents would understand that it autism is not a trait they can free their child of, but a trait that deserves love and support through realization does it is part of who their child is.

Citations

dePackh, Selene. Troubleshooting: Glitch in the System: Book One EBook: Selene DePackh: Kindle Store. Reclamation Press, 2018
Don’t Mourn For Us, John Sinclair. Autism Network International Newsletter, Our Voice, Volume 1, Number 3, 1993. Referenced in 1993 International Autism Conference Speech. Accessed online at : [http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html]
Julia Miele Rodas, “Introduction” and “UnConclusion—Because the Butterfly: Autistic Infinitudes” from Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe . Accessed on Class Website, Week 15 Readings.

Autism the Concept of Being Normal and Breaking down Stereotypes

Jasmine Williams disability literature examDownload

Jasmine Williams

Dr. Foss

Disability Literature 304 Section 02

Final Exam

April 30, 2019

Autism the Concept of Being Normal and Breaking down Stereotypes

Autism has been a topic in which society tends to view differently. People who are non-autistic sometimes do not understand how to interact with an autistic person. Not knowing how to interact with a person with autism comes with the stereotypes of autism. Some view autistic people as not worth listening to, awkward and, not being able to fit into society. The term normal is used often in both society and disability studies to define the way people interact or carry themselves. Normal is something that society want one another to reflect in order to fit in. Autism comes with stereotypes put in place by society but, over the years advocacy groups and people who are autistic help put down stereotypes place on the autistic community. People who part of the autism community are speaking about their differences, how society reacts to their differences and the questions that non – autistic people ask.

Normal is a term that comes up in disability studies and how society define the term of being normal. Normal is a term that is tricky because it is a term that is hard to define. Normal can be used in many ways and, according to Sinclair normal is used by parents as a source of not relating to the autistic child (Sinclair). New parents want the best for their children and provide for them in the way that society views as a better life for a child (Sinclair). However, when a child is autistic some parents stop viewing their child as normal and instead view the child with autism as a tragedy (Sinclair). Also, the different ways in which autistic people navigate society is seen by some as awkward and one might ask why? That is because “Non- autistic people see autism as a great tragedy” (Sinclair). How non- autistic people view autism makes some ask do non – autistic people really know what autism is?

Autism is defined as a neurological condition, that affects the way information is processed in the brain, autism is a spectrum condition and ranges from a person being non- verbal or highly talkative (Murray 1).  Knowing the scientific definition of autism still impacts the controversy on how one could inherit the disorder.  One controversy was the Anti – Vax Movement and how parents believed that vaccines were the main cause of autism (Murray 83). Vaccines use to contain mercury and some people believed the toxin in the vaccines was a link to autism in children (Murray83).

The vaccination movement shows how people get nervous about the concept of autism. People who are non- autistic not only get nervous on the concept of the condition but, they also tend to mourn people who have autism. Mourning about autism happens because non- autistic people view people with autism as being lost (Sinclair).  Lost meaning not being able to be the best according to society standards and society not accepting autism (Sinclair). Autism does not equal to mourning and instead, should be explored (Sinclair). Meaning that just because someone is autistic does not mean you lose them (Sinclair). For example, Sinclair points out the meaning of mourning for parents that have children with autism, “You did not lose a child to autism” … “You just waited for a child that never existed” (Sinclair). Listening to an autistic person point of view would help non – autistic people learn about the autism community and people close to them who is autistic. Listening would also help with autistic people trying to navigate society and provide autistic people with a sense of being welcomed in society.

DJ Savarese did an interview with CNN Dr. Sanjay Gupta in which Savarese express how communication was the key for people trying to understand him and others who have autism (Savarese). With autism having the stereotype of being socially awkward often communication gets ignored. People with autism want to be able to express their concerns but, they are rarely valued. During the interview, DJ Savarese explained his autism and how his communication was different and required an aide to help him interact with people (Savarese).  One of the questions that were asked during the interview was “what can free people do to help a person with autism” (Savarese). Savarese explained that for him communication was key, typing out the question work for him, looking at him instead of the facilitators and ignoring his voluntary movements (Savarese). Savarese response was important because it showed an example of how listening to a person with a disability is beneficial than just assuming.

Autism affects people in different ways and, serves as another minority background to some people. According to Morenike Giwa Onaiwu Preface: Autistics of Color: We Exist … We Matter, Onaiwu reflects on people of color and how autism reflects them and how sometimes people of color are not seen in the autism community. Onaiwu explains how she personally feels “like a minority within a minority group,” because she is both a person of color and autistic (Onaiwu xiv). Autism for Onaiwu is overlooked because she does not represent the stereotypes of an autistic person (Onaiwu xv). The stereotypes of autism were noted by Onaiwu in the following way: “Autism = (white male presenting) toddler wearing Thomas the Train shirt, Autism = (white male presenting) geeky computer programmer” (Onaiwa xv). As a woman of color Onaiwu felt that there was no space in the autism community for people like her and the autism community only reflected on the white male perspective of autism (Onaiwu xv). Preface: Autistics of Color: We Exist … We Matter provided the voices of people of color with autism with the use of poetry.  One of the poems COBRA Confessions of a Black Aspie went over how autism impacted how people viewed them. The poem reflected this by saying “I’m different from other blacks because I’m autistic…. I’m different from other autistics because I’m black (Onaiwu xviii).” Another piece in Onaiwu work reflected the ableism in the autism community and how one “cannot recognize ableism without recognizing how it is affected by racism.” Onaiwu also, reflected on Dee Phair Unpacking the Diagnostic TARDIS when she reflects on being a mother, a person of color and, autistic. In Phair’s piece, she emphasizes how she is not alone when it comes to autism, being a person of color and a mother and that there is someone in society who goes through the same situations that she goes through (Onaiwu xvi).

Autism is a condition that affects a person in many ways and over the years we have seen people with autism pave the way. For example, Temple Grandin, Donna Williams, and Dawn Prince – Hughes made it possible for audiences to understand autistic lives (Murray 32). Having autistic influences help show society that people with autism can achieve their dreams. Having autistic influences also, help answer some question that non- autistic people have about the disorder and the autism community. In disability studies class we reflected on autism studies and how society tends to take different views on the concept of autism. In class, we went over the advocacy and how autism was treated in the past until today. While studying autism I have personally learned how people interpreted autism differently. Some people only tended to talk about autism medically and some wanting to see autism explained and reflected in the autism community itself. The study of autism has come a long way with the term of a normal person or a normal child. In today’s society advocates encourage people to learn about autism and learn about the people close to them with autism.

As a society, we tend to dream of being normal to be accepted by society and, tend to not explore a person’s unique qualities.  Autism affects each person differently and people should learn and listen to the autism community. Murray, Savarese, Sinclair, and Onaiwu explains how autism affects people differently by their own personal accounts. One autistic person might face a challenge that another autistic may not have to face. Autism does not discriminate and there is no one way of autism. During the end of the day, we can come together and understand autism and how autism itself impacts disability studies.

Word Count: 1357

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

Jasmine Williams

Work Cited

Murray, Stuart. Autism,New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2012.

Onaiwu, Morenike Giwa. Preface: Autistics of Color: We Exist We… Matter, http://courses.chris-foss.net/dislit19/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/giwa-onaiwu.pdf. Access 24, April. 2019.

Savarese, DJ. “Cultural Commentary: Communicate with Me”. Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 1, 2010. http://www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1051/1237. Accessed 29 April 2019.

Sinclair, Jim. “Don’t Mourn For Us.” ANI Fashion Website, http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html. Accessed 29 April. 2019.

Stephanie Rizzo’s Final Paper

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

Kenzie Ward’s Final Exam Paper

 Characterization of Autism in Troubleshooting

The book “Troubleshooting”, by Selene dePackh, is about a dystopian world that revolves around this idea that autism is something that should be treated, and that autistic people are lesser than able-bodied allistics. The author takes these prominent issues in our society dealing with autism, and creates this perceivable future of what would happen if laws protecting disabled people went away and cure based research became more idealized. The main character Dax is an autistic woman that goes through many points in her life where she struggles to survive in this society that treats her poorly. Her struggles provide insight into the barriers autistic people face in the real world, including getting and keeping a job, cure-based research, and overall ignorance and discrimination of autistic people. In spite of those struggles, the author still depicts Dax as an autistic woman shown creating and maintaining sexual and platonic relationships and gives her other qualities that extend beyond her diagnosis, making her a positive representation of an autistic character.

Many depictions of autistic characters in media represent a very similar profile as to what is considered an autistic person. A lot of autistic characters we see in media have traits such as social awkwardness, high intelligence, asexuality, being gullible or unable to lie, and usually end up being portrayed as white or male. Even though many of these things are characteristics of autism, it shouldn’t be the only thing that describes that person or character. A lot of famous characters that come to mind include Sheldon Cooper from “The Big Bang Theory,”, Dr. Shawn Murphy from “The Good Doctor”, and Sam Gardner from “Atypical”. Although these characters can be beneficial representations of people on the spectrum that spread awareness, this specific profile focuses more on the high functioning, savant-like white males that are on the spectrum. This tends to shine the light away from those who are low-functioning, people of color, and women who also exist on the spectrum. “Troubleshooting” shines a light on those people on the spectrum, and the author successfully portrays Dax as a more positive and multidimensional autistic female character. This portrayal of an autistic person is very refreshing in comparison to the other characters previously listed.

Throughout the book, while Dax is fighting for autistic rights in this allistic and ableist society, we also get a glimpse of who she is as a person with characteristics that coincide with her autism. We see a character who takes control over her circumstances and fights for her independence and rights of all people on the autism spectrum. It is also a rare thing to see an explicit view on an autistic person’s sex life because they are usually viewed as asexual and are overall infantilized. With this viewpoint of Dax’s intimate relationships, we also get to see her as this more powerful woman who demands to be in charge of what happens to both her and her partner. In the book, we see her relationship with Chill become more intimate which entails a closer look at how Dax openly expresses her dominance. She also finds herself in a position of power as she takes her independence into her own hands. While she is in an abusive relationship with The Mistake, she finds solace in her work as she discovers the organization Polaris.

Oftentimes the portrayal we get of autistic people tends to show them hating the idea of having relationships with other people. This is just an example of an overgeneralization of a characteristic that is on the spectrum. Although making relationships with people could be difficult and uncomfortable for someone on the spectrum, we see Dax seeking and maintaining relationships with a multitude of people throughout her life. This disregards that stigma that autistic people try to avoid others as best they can because usually that’s just a misunderstanding. Even though it might be more difficult for her to feel comfortable making friends, it is important to see that certain things motivate her to do it, similar to how neurotypical people think as well. For example, the author writes, “I went up and introduced myself even though making social is usually something I’d rather scrub a free public toilet than do; stomach-twisting lust is a powerful motivator” (dePackh, 3). As a reader, this gives us another aspect of how forming relationships is something that autistic people want, and Dax clearly expresses that interest in the story. She also keeps in touch with quite a few people in her life and create close and intimate bonds with Chill Dark, Gabriel Dark, and Tom Webster.

Selene dePackh creates an almost unusual portrayal of someone on the spectrum because it is not what we usually see in books and movies. A character is usually written explicitly as part of a pity story and heavily victimizes the character and writes about how they “overcame” their hardships with autism. As an example, in the story “Of mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, an autistic character named Lenny went through many moments that involved misunderstandings between him and another character. He was written as a character that was much more infantilized than Dax which deemed him unable to take care of himself, as well as fully comprehend the actions of others. Because of this, Lenny ended up murdering a woman because he didn’t fully grasp how powerful he was and ended up dying because of it. In the story “Troubleshooting”, even though Dax is met with hardships such as being forced into prostitution, discriminated against, and abused, we are given a much more hopeful narrative where the character takes control of her circumstances.

There are many depictions of autistic characters in shows where the main protagonist is usually a straight, white male. Similarly, a lot of the narratives end up creating a character who is more victimized than uplifted in the story. The author Selene dePackh introduces a protagonist in her story that is a refreshing take on the characterization of autistic people. Dax is a multifaceted character that is autistic but is also written with having characteristics that are extensions of that diagnosis. She is an autistic character that is written in a positive light because she represents a part of the spectrum that is overlooked. She also has attributes presented to us throughout the story that creates a hopeful dialogue and represents a positive outlook on the characterization of autistic people.

I pledge: Kenzie Ward

Word count: 1069

Citations

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

css.php