Category: Short Reading Response
Lu Sheikhnureldin’s Response to Lambeth’s Symptoms
In Laurie Clements Lambeth’s poem Symptoms, she compares the poetic speaker’s back, leg, and arm compression braces to a girdle and a corset. This comparison along with the speaker describing themselves as sporting a cane in a similar way one would describe carrying a purse are the presumed female presenting speaker trying to find a connection between their femininity and their disability. The speaker then goes on to say that if the clothes they were wearing were to fall, everyone would see their cellophane body. Their braces and their cane are their versions of the able bodied women fashion, but yet they must cover those up with societal fashion standards to hide their body because it is a disabled body which doesn’t fit the female image. Lambeth’s speaker can be seen as reclaiming their braces and cane as their own fashion and rejecting the fashion of able bodied women instead of longing for their fashion which strays away from the narrative of disabled people wishing they were able bodied or minded.
In Garland-Thomson’s piece on feminist theory and disability theory, she touches on the subjects of the disabled female body not being seen as something sexual or desirable and instead seen on something shameful or pitiful. Lambeth’s poem of the speaker having to cover up their braces and canes with fashion that was made with the intent for an able bodied woman to wear represents this because the need to cover up is directly related to the speaker feeling like they should be ashamed of their body instead of embracing it. This feeling of shame relates to Sheila Black’s poem,What You Mourn, and how this concept of self love and body acceptance is not meant for disabled bodies because disabled bodies are things that need to be fixed or covered up.
Kafer’s Imagined Future really goes in depth on how society sees disabled people as people who long for an able bodied or minded life when that is not the case for many disabled people especially since the rise of disability advocacy and studies. Able bodied and minded people think of disability developing in their lifetime either to them or a loved one as a tragedy, so Kafer states that this future without disability is their imagined future. It is a lovely, perfect future because disabled people are excluded from it. This ideology shows how disability is something to be ashamed of and if someone can “fix” their disability they should. A disabled person such as Lambeth’s speaker, in an able bodied mindset, should have no problem with hiding their disability because it makes this imagined future seem more possible when this imagined future is not something disabled people want in the first place.
Lambeth’s speaker refers to their cane as something they sport, not something that burdens them and wish to get rid of. Their braces are like corsets and girdles, but the rest of the world sees it as a cellophane. They describe clothes like skirts and sleeves with a negative inflict that they don’t use when describing their braces and canes because the majority of people seeing a disabled body as something that needs negative inflict are able bodied people. The speaker says that the dresses and the sheets of their bed are meant to bind them and it is an interesting comparison because their compression braces are binding them, but not in the way the clothes and sheets do. The clothes they are forced to wear is this societal binding to an image of a disabled person forced to act like they aren’t disabled while the compression braces are physically binding their muscles, but it does not hold them back like the able bodied clothes do.
Word Count: 633 I pledge
Alicia’s Response to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird- Ignorance Begets Ignorance
Why do legends and folklore intrigue and excite us? Why do they scare us? Simply put, they push our boundaries. They test our perception of what we know to be okay, or safe, or normal. Oftentimes, the folklore that is passed down within societal boundaries or cultural tradition incorporates fantastical or supernatural elements that are simply not of this world. While To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee has many themes, Prejudice is notably one of the most prevalent. Consistent with the aforementioned power of the unknown is the neighborhood myth of the Radley family. The legend of Arthur, or “Boo” Radley has passed through the small town of Maycomb, Alabama for decades. As many of Maycomb’s residents can neither read nor write, the legend is passed by word of mouth. The fascination of the mysterious Radley house resonates particularly within the curiosities and imaginations of young children. As the story goes, an earlier traumatic incident (that is never classified as true or false) causes the central oddity, Boo Radley, to remain within the confines of the family home for many, many years..
I can’t help but wonder why the book’s central characters’ father, Atticus, did not simply inform his children straightaway about the true circumstances surrounding the Radley family. He tells them,”You never really understand a person until you consider thing from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it..” (Lee 36) One could say that he wanted his children to make up their own minds about Arthur Radley. However, considering the families intentionally limited contact with the outside world, it is fair to point out that we may never have been presented the truth about Boo Radley. Fortunately, his story does eventually unfold and we understand that Boo is not the horrible creature the neighborhood gossip has made him out to be, but in reality is an exceptionally average adult man, who just happens to suffer from an unspecified intellectual dis/ability of sorts. However, since he is so rarely seen outside in society- an unusual trend for Maycomb, the truth about his appearance and overall character continue to be generated by speculation in an “ignorance begets ignorance” type of fashion.
Boo is rumoured to be enormous in stature and possessing incredible physical strength, which could only be restrained by the use of chains. This description paints a very Frankenstein-esque portrait for the readers. The character Dill speculates that Boo must also have blood stained hands because he frequently, “dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch.” (Lee 16) This imagery gives Boo a beastly, animalistic presentation, minimizing his human qualities even further.
From the reader’s perspective it is easy to assume that this particular projection of Arthur Radley is merely that of a child’s imagination, manifesting ignorance into fear. An equally nightmarish (and equally as ignorant) opinion of Boo is presented by local gossip, Stephanie Crawford, who turns out to be one of the children’s main sources of “information.” Crawford reinforces the children’s fear by telling them how Boo prowls around at night and looks in windows. This is significant because at this point it is longer one child telling another a tall tale, but rather an adult figure validating the fear and misinformation that comes hand in hand with prejudice.
In reality, what is brutally unfair for Arthur Radley (and the entire dis/abled, yet still very human population) is that he/they are never given a voice, but rather plagued by the voices of those around him/them. We assume that since Maycomb suffers an overall lack of education and general exposure to dis/ability, people like Arthur Radley are misunderstood and thus mistreated, but this reflection of ignorance associated with dis/ability is still existing in our society currently.
If Harper Lee’s child characters are simply the victims of misguidance, then what can be said for Stephanie Crawford’s adult character? And in whose hands does the responsibility of ignorance really fall?
Word Count- 680
I Pledge- Alicia Beth
Taylor’s Response to Oscar Wilde’s “The Star Child”
In Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale “The Star Child,” we are introduced to a story about a young boy who is seen as beautiful, which causes him to be proud, cruel, and selfish. Due to all of these negative qualities he refuses to believe that an unseemly beggar woman is his mother. He later loses his beauty and devotes his time exploring the beggar woman’s whereabouts in hopes that she will somehow restore his beauty. Disability, like all common themes, is displayed across Wilde’s literature. For example, “The Birthday of the Infanta,” “The Selfish Giant,” and “Frankenstein,” which will be discussed in relation to the below characters. Disability awareness is portrayed through the two main characters, The Star Child and the old beggar lady.
The boy knew he was desirable, which made him narcissistic. Due to his believed superiority, as the son of a star, he believed that he is of higher- caliber than that of everyone else. The star child could be seen as having an internal disability, which is demonstrated when he becomes hideous and everyone turns their backs on him. He may still be beautiful, but his inward disability revealed and others saw what he really is, disabled. The boy reminds me a little of Victor Frankenstein, only because we see them both showing a lack of empathy, but also feeling love and kindness towards those without “disabilities. In-class discussion, my group brought up the possibility of Frankenstein having split personality disorder, I think this could also be said for that of The Star Boy. The boy responds to his “mother” wanting a kiss by displaying disgust and correlating a toad to be a better option than she, which demonstrates how people react towards those with disabilities. Another minor role that could be seen as disabled is the leper that the boy discovers along his journey. Lepers were seen as hideous scaly creatures, not humans, they were different which deemed them less than human. The old beggar lady was seen in the same manner.
The old beggar lady can be seen as disabled in the same way we see Frankenstein’s creation as disabled or the same way we see the dwarf in “The Birthday of Infanta” as disabled. All of the above characters represent disability in some way or another. Frankenstein’s creation is seen as hideous and is therefore isolated and treated like that of someone with a disability. The dwarf in “The Birthday of Infanta” is looked upon similarly. Although he is hideous and viewed as less than and is dehumanized, the princess keeps him around for her amusement. The old beggar lady’s situation is no different. The boy among others looks down upon this “disabled” woman and dehumanizes her by throwing stones at her and taunting her.
In Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale “The Star Child,” he displays disability through the lens of the old beggar lady as well as the star child. The common mistake with a disability is that it can be seen, the characters that are spoken about could have hidden disabilities that cannot be seen by another’s eyes, which is demonstrated by The Star Child. Disability is prominent in the old beggar lady more so than the boy. The old beggar lady’s “disability” is based upon her looks whereas the boy’s “disability” is hidden underneath his facade. There are so many different ways of looking at how authors and Wilde himself incorporated disability within their characters.
I pledge: Taylor Butler
Word Count: 573
