In Joy Harjo’s poem, “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window”, the author portrays an unnamed female character contemplating to commit suicide by falling off the thirteenth floor of a tenement building in East Chicago. Looking at the poem through a disability lens, a crucial key passage shows the character’s feelings in the environment around them at present, morph together to create a person that is struggling with decisions of suicide and severe depression. The key passage is as follows:
And the woman hanging from the 13th floor window
hears other voices. Some of them scream out from below
for her to jump, they would push her over. Others cry softly
from the sidewalks, pull their children up like flowers and gather
them into their arms. They would help her, like themselves.
But she is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window,
and she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her
own skin, her own thread of indecision. (l.41-48)
The author states that the woman can hear voices from below. Some call “for her to jump” and some say they will “push her over” to her death, while others “cry softly” and pled that they “would help her” (l.43,45). These people at the bottom can be interpreted as the able-bodied people of society and their reactions to this woman’s disability. On one hand, people are condoning her suicide because having a disability a hardship or a difficult for which helping her end her life might be a way of escaping that burden. As the author addresses, “She thinks she will be set free” (l. 7). On the other hand, there are people who see her suffering and are compassionate. They are supportive and want to help her. When they say “they would help her like themselves” (l. 45), it could the interpreted as those in the community who suffer from disability if not from depression like the character. Whether the people want her to jump or not, it is still not their decision in the end.
Towards the end of this passage, it is stated “but she is the woman hanging from the 13th-floor window” indicating the decision to end her life or live with her depression is ultimately up to her, not society, she is the only one hanging from the window. With the lines, “she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her/ own skin, her own thread of indecision” (l. 47-48) The character understands that it is not the effects of the society below that are hanging her in the balance of her indecision, it is her own fingers, her own choice to allow her to fall or not. It goes to show that the disabled individual or any disabled person has the capability to make the decision for themselves, not anyone else.
Overall, this passage put to questions some aspects that can be applied to disability studies, these being the concept of society’s influence on the disabled individual and the capability of a disabled individual to make a decision for themselves.
Works Cited
Harjo, Joy. The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window, 19 Feb. 2019, www.amerinda.org/newsletter/13-3/harjo.html.
Word Count: 524
