Michelle Zillioux<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ENG 384<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Final Essay<\/p>\n\n\n\n
30 April, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized help on this assignment. <\/em>Michelle Zillioux<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0Relationships in Troubleshooting<\/em>: Tom Webster, the\nMistake and CAN<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Selene de Packh\u2019s novel, Troubleshooting<\/em>, the protagonist,\nDax Archer, often finds herself at the mercy of her circumstances. As an\nautistic woman in a society that devalues her assistance, Dax must navigate her\ncircumstances in order to survive. She is often presented with fewer options to\ndo so due to her lower status within her society, and therefore is regularly pushed\nto rely on others despite being shown as a perfectly capable and independent individual\nthroughout the novel. Because of this, she encounters and suffers several relationships\nthrough the course of the novel with characters and groups who act as though\nthey care for her when, in reality, they only have their own best interests in\nmind. Paralleling how advocacy groups such as Cure Autism Now (which has now\nmerged with Autism Speaks) treat autistic people, these relationships, which\ninclude those she forms with Tom Webster and the Mistake, attempt to \u201ccure\u201d\nher, strip her of her agency and devalue her existence as a human being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Ralph James Savarese in \u201cToward a Postcolonial\nNeurology: Autism, Tito Mukhopadhyay, and a New Geo-poetics of the Body,\u201d the\nadvocacy group CAN \u201cwas all too happy to champion Tito as evidence of what is\npossible for \u2018severely autistic children, [but] its primary focus was to raise\nfunds to develop a cure [\u2026]\u201d (6). Although Tom Webster endures as one of the\nmore empathetic characters in dePackh\u2019s novel, he ends up emulating this\nstatement at times as he supports Dax\u2019s maturation and assimilation into\nsociety in the hopes that she will learn to suppress her autism. A father\nfigure to Dax after she escapes from Thunderbird Mountain and seeks refuge\namong his family, Tom gives her access to opportunities that she had been\nbarred from in the past due to her being an autistic woman, including a chance\nat an education from a trade school and access to a job afterwards. Due to\nthese opportunities, Dax is able to mature and grow as a person, and, at first,\nTom appears to readers as an ally who supplies her with accessibility. However,\nit later becomes apparent that Tom has attempted to force Dax to overcome her\nautism while maintaining control over her life in a similar fashion to CAN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom\u2019s intentions become clear towards the end of the novel when he\nexpresses his disapproval over Dax\u2019s sexual relationship with Chill Dark: \u201cYou\nwere doing so well, Dax. You were beating the autism\u201d (dePackh, 211). Here,\nafter seeing that Dax has strayed from the path he intended for her, he reacts\nnegatively because he has lost control over her. It becomes clear that,\nalthough he cares for as a father, his intentions in giving her access to\nresponsibility over non-automatic bill payments, a home and a job, were to\nintegrate her into society as someone who beat or suppressed her autism so that\nshe could pass as allistic, or \u201cnormal.\u201d Whether these intentions are born from\nfather-like love or not, they disregard Dax\u2019s agency over herself while\ndiminishing her autism to something that must be overcome, just as when\nadvocacy groups like CAN and Autism Speaks pretend they are acting in the best\ninterests of autistic people despite really only seek to cure them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Later in the novel, Dax also forms a relationship with a man she\nrole-names the Mistake, who, similar to Tom, displays initially helpful\nbehavior that is misleading and eventually becomes detrimental to Dax. However,\nThe Mistake, who begins as a seemingly kind and patient character (even with\nDax\u2019s narration warning otherwise), ends up being a far more violent and\nantagonistic character than Tom. Similar to CAN\u2019s beliefs considering autistic\npeople, the Mistake fails to respect Dax\u2019s existence entirely; at times, he\neven sees her autism as an embarrassment, such as when he says, \u201cYou. Have.\nHumiliated. Me. for the Last. Fucking. Time \u2014 Freak<\/em>!\u201d (155) after she\nhas an emotional outburst at CareWell. Here, in expressing his view of her as a\n\u201cfreak,\u201d he is essentially admitting that he believes her status as an autistic\nperson makes her inferior to him. This is a belief that may have influenced his\nviolence against her because, if he believes she is inferior and a \u201cfreak,\u201d\nthen he most likely views her as undeserving of being treated as a human being,\njust as CAN\u2019s belief that autism is a disease leads them to dehumanize autistic\npeople and search for a cure to eradicate autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a while, The Mistake also slowly renders Dax reliant on him.\nAfter the two are forced to live together following an incident at their\nworkplace and the destruction of his home, the Mistake begins to ease his way\ninto Dax\u2019s life by helping her pay her bills and serving as a source of\nprotection. Additionally, the Mistake\u2019s status as an allistic and able-bodied\nman makes it easier for him to take control, as Dax legally has few rights.\nEventually, Dax, herself, starts to both believe she relies on him and owes\nhim. This is a state of mind that ultimately makes her feel trapped in her\nrelationship with him: \u201cAs a solitary autistic, I needed him and he knew it\u201d\n(115). Comparably, famed autistic self-advocate Tito Mukhopadhyay, along with\nhis mother, felt trapped after they were manipulated and taken advantage of by\nCAN, who served as their sponsor and continually \u201cpoliced [their] every move,\nprevented opportunities for interviews, and signed away rights to [their] story\non [their] behalf\u201d (Savarese, 6-7). Mirroring this behavior, the Mistake strips\nDax of her independence by preventing her from driving and by controlling her\nbank account so that only he can make use of her money. He therefore acts\nalmost like an analogy for the abusive and controlling behavior of advocacy\ngroups like CAN. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In writing Dax\u2019s\nrelationships with Tom Webster and the Mistake so that they depict the\ndifferent kinds of negative relationships autistic people have experienced in\ntheir lives, Selene dePackh forms a poignant analogy for the treatment of\nautistic people in both the world of Troubleshooting<\/em> and in real life.\nTom and the Mistake are both major influences over Dax throughout most of the\nnovel who have been thrust into her life, whether she likes it or not, due to\nher circumstances as an autistic woman. Just as advocacy organizations like CAN\nand Autism Speaks often market themselves as benign organizations who seek help\nfor autistic people when they are, in reality, searching to eradicate autism,\nTom tries to help Dax in a way that ultimately serves his own beliefs and\ninterests over hers. Furthermore, the Mistake takes advantage of Dax\u2019s\ncircumstances and devalues her existence by abusing her and controlling many\naspects of her life, thus paralleling CAN\u2019s real-life treatment of Tito Mukhopadhyay.\nSelene dePackh\u2019s crafting of Dax\u2019s relationships with these two men therefore serves\nas a parallel to the real-world treatment of autistic people, as best\ncharacterized through so-called autistic advocacy groups\u2019 views on autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Word Count: 1157<\/p>\n\n\n\n Works Cited:<\/p>\n\n\n\n dePackh, Selene. Troubleshooting<\/em>. San Francisco: Reclamation Press, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Savarese, Ralph James. \u201cToward a Postcolonial Neurology: Autism, Tito Mukhopadhyay, and a New Geo-poetics of the Body.\u201d Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies<\/em>, vol. 4, no. 3, 2010, p.p. 273-289. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 \u00a0Relationships in Troubleshooting: Tom Webster, the Mistake and CAN \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Selene de Packh\u2019s novel, Troubleshooting, the protagonist, Dax Archer, often finds herself … Continue reading “Relationships in Troubleshooting: Tom Webster, the Mistake, and CAN”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-take-home-final-examinations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papJgd-o8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1497,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions\/1497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}