The demand within autistic communities for autistic authors is high. How could it not be? Every person wants to feel that their voice is being heard, whether it is by their own words being delivered to the public or through a trusted proxy. For most of the existence of the literary community, however, autistic expression has been disregarded and treated as less valuable by scholars and audiences alike. Julie Miele Rodas and Ralph James Savarese provide in their books Autistic Disturbances and See It Feelingly, through alternative perspectives on autistic rhetoric, a comparative analysis on the existence and importance of viewing literature through a neurodivergent lens.
The first issue that becomes apparent when examining literature with autistic influence in mind is the oversight which happens to the expressions of actual autistic people. Both Rodas and Savarese discuss the general dismissal that occurs towards the alternative literacies that autistic people often use to communicate. For Savarese’s son, DJ, while his main forms of communication—writing and speaking—are themselves not unusual, the manner in which he is able to communicate is. Text-to-speech communicators are strange, if you’ve never been around someone who uses one, and many people become uncomfortable around synthetic voices, as well as the inevitable delay that occurs when a person has to type instead of speaking aloud. While not always intentional, it is not uncommon for neurotypical, able-bodied people to assume that because of his disability DJ lacks intelligence. The end result is that people like DJ, who struggle to communicate in the typical way, have their words and their thoughts devalued. Rodas describes the manner in which “even autism-positive literary scholars are prone to explain autistic verbal practices as literary deficits”, neatly summing up the way which even disability scholars can (whether maliciously or not) overlook or misunderstand the intent behind autistic language, applying a neurotypical film over an autistic person’s words to make them more palatable (Rodas 182). Not only this, but the existence of autistic authors is often overlooked or deliberately ignored due to a lack of clear evidence supporting the neurodivergence of accredited writers.
One of the most problematic assumptions that can be made about literature of merit is that none of it was written or influenced by autistic people. Rodas seeks to destroy this notion of neurotypical-until-proven-neurodivergent by not only identifying patterns of autistic thought and expression throughout the literary canon, but also attempting to remove the blinders of what counts as autistic language. Autistic people, Rodas points out, “embrace an infinite variety of varieties and expressive modes”, rather than being confined by strict rules that determine an exact criterion for autistic expression (Rodas 183). In fact, Rodas encourages “reaching” for examples of autistic influence in literature for the sake of seeking out intersectional connections between autism and all other walks of life (Rodas 192). She outlines that many forms of autistic expression can seem innocuous to the uniformed eye; listing, repetition, wordplay, silence, and more all hold a place in autistic artistic rhetoric. It is only once these motifs are ascribed to autism that they begin to carry a different weight. Rodas references the lists that appear in Jorge Louis Borges’ “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” with the purpose of pointing out how “Borges’ tongue-in-cheek inventory speaks to both the apparent worthlessness of discretionary rhetorics as well as to their potential for intelligence, invention, even humor” (Rodas 188). The reason why literature is usually assumed to be written by neurotypical people is because autistic expression is presented as less functional and meaningful. By presenting literary works that exhibit motifs which can be related to autistic rhetoric, Rodas removes the boundary between notable works of literature and works of literature written by autistic people. Not only does Rodas disregard the invisible barrier of ableism, but she also shows that elements of autistic rhetoric and expression exist outside of the vacuum of literature written about and by autistic people. It is through this acknowledgement of autistic expression holding not only value, but also normalcy, that neurodivergent rhetoric is moved from the theoretical, othered position, to one which may encourage and be engaged with by neurodivergent indivudials.
The biggest distinction to consider when discussing the examination of literature through a neurodivergent lens is the difference between reading autism and reading while autistic. Rodas’s work focuses on reading literature while searching for autistic influences; Savarese, comparatively, illuminates the ways in which stories that are superficially unrelated to the topic of autism can affect a person who is autistic, both the good and the bad. Neither of these perspectives is problematic, but are, rather, two of the necessary viewpoints when tying autism to literature. Stories have two fundamental parts: the author, and the audience. By accounting for autistic influences both in how literature is formed and how it is received by autistic people can the full scope of neurodivergent presence literature be understood. Without both these perspectives being utilized, a foundational pillar of disability studies is lost. In Savarese’s prologue, DJ says that he “‘feel[s] characters’ feelings’” and is described as “screaming at the top of his own oxygen-depleted lungs” in response to a character from Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air dying. This intense empathetic response might seem unimportant in regards to the novel as a whole. However, DJ’s response speaks to a greater connection between themes of misunderstanding and abuse in literature and those that appear in the autistic community. DJ is upset by the death of Rob Hall not only due to his empathetic nature, but also the experiences he himself has gone through as an autistic person. Savarese explains the feelings of “extreme helplessness” portrayed in the novel that DJ identified with, as a disabled child in foster care left without any way to communicate (Savarese 21). The identification and understanding of autistic influence in literature, as Rodas does, are necessary for furthering an awareness of autistic rhetoric, but Savarese’s accounts of his son explains why encountering and encouraging neurodivergent voices matters. Despite the fact that reading can be a trial for DJ, Savarese describes the intense way that DJ “identified” with stories, and encountering such emotional trials and overcoming them eventually gave to way to a greater grasp over his own emotional state (Savarese 15). DJ, a writer in his own right, suggested that “real change is only possible when different thinkers free people to open their eyes to new ways of being”, a direct proponent of how vital it is for autistic rhetoric to be acknowledged not only within literature, but about literature.
Autism, as well as any form of neurodivergence, is not a simple condition with easily defined borders that can be understood at a glance. However, it is because of the vast number of possible expressions of autism that make recognizing and celebrating autistic rhetoric so important. Rodas and Savarese’s writing encompass the two most foundational parts of understanding literature through a neurodivergent lens by enumerating and examining the ways in which autistic rhetoric affects established literature, and the experiencing of literature by autistic people. The cycle of author to reader that their books provide allows for a fuller understanding of autistic rhetoric in a way that does not merely encounter neurodivergence but embraces it and allows it to thrive.
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Sources:
Rodas, Julia Miele, and Melanie Yergeau. Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe. University of Michigan Press, 2018.
Savarese, Ralph James. See It Feelingly: Classic Novels, Autistic Readers, and the Schooling of a No-Good English Professor. Duke University Press, 2018.
