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