Coming Out Mad and Coming Out Disabled by Elizabeth Brewer was a super interesting and fun read. I liked having more insight into the world of disability studies and the inter-community issues. All marginalized groups have topics that are frequently debated within them which not many people realize because the way they see it is in like a The Oppressors vs The Oppressed sort of way, so in the case of disability studies people would think that the only issue in the disabled community is about non disabled people and how their ableism impacts disabled people when there’s so many intricacies that go into it. I personally agree with Linton’s inclusive view of disability and don’t think that broadening the definition discredits the community, but instead makes it stronger! I love talking about the spectrum of disability and I think focusing on more than JUST mental or JUST physical is super vital for disability studies and not including it would be counterintuitive.
I Am (Clare) by John Clare makes me wish I knew how to analyze poetry better. What I felt from the poem was that the speaker still feels like themselves even though the people around them, even their friends feel that their disability has changed them for the worse and they are no longer the person they used to be which is super common for people to feel that disabled people aren’t actual people with thoughts and personalities. The phrase empty shell is used a lot or “not what they used to be” and those phrases make it sound like disability completely erases the person and it’s the entire victimizing thing that was discussed in the Reassigning Meaning piece we read. Clare’s poem reaffirms that people do victimize disabled people, but the speaker in their poem does not care at all about this victimization and knows that they are who they are and not regardless or despite their disability, but because of their disability.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was mind blowing. I found so many connections in the text to back up the disability lens theory and I also see why people read this book in racial studies and gender studies classrooms as well. I had never read it until now and it is WILD!!!! First, I’d like to suggest calling Frankenstein’s creation simply Creation because by not associating him with Viktor it is easier to see him as his own person instead of a dependent which removes another stereotype about disabled people. Yes, he is technically Viktor’s creation, but Viktor does not claim the creation as his own and I believe it isn’t fair to Creation to think of him as” belonging” to Viktor. I could see an argument saying that calling Creation, Viktor’s is the same as saying “Dan’s child”, but I would not call Creation Viktor’s son or child because Viktor does not have that right to call him that after how he abandoned him. I promise this is not an entirely Anti-Viktor post or anything, interesting character, but viewing him in a disability lens when talking about him and Creation I dislike him, but seeing him on his own, I think he’s….intriguing.
Okay now the actual stuff I wanted to talk about
Creation telling Viktor that if he were to give him a wife, he would take his wife and flee to a South American jungle, far from human civilization was, to me, a mirror on the segregation of disabled people. Whether that be institutionalized segregation or familial (Bertha from Jane Eyre, Rosemary Kennedy), the point is people try to remove disabled people from their lives by literally hiding them away. Creation is aware of this segregation and even offers to self segregate as long as he is not alone.
Viktor not wanting to make Creation a wife because he didn’t want to bring another “monster” in to the world felt like when parents have a child with a disability and refuse to have more children because they don’t want the other children to be disabled. Those parents are making disability into this horrible thing that needs to be stopped and that they did something awful by having a disabled child which is exactly what Viktor thought. Granted this was after Creation had killed his brother and by association killed his housekeeper, but Creation spoke to him and told him that he is a free thinking being who can communicate and feelings things and wants to be accepted by somebody. Regardless of this deep confession Creation gave, Viktor could not pull through because he thought he’d making the world worse. And Viktor has his own reasons granted, but this blog post is too long for me to go into why I think Viktor is not completely at fault. (70% at fault though, don’t get me wrong)
When Henry and Viktor go abroad and Henry is just this over enthusiastic, positive person and Viktor is…the opposite. Viktor says that he saw his former self in Henry. The person he was before Creation and the first thing that came to my mind was he is acting like those parents who treat their disabled children as this burden on their life. More specifically the Autism Speaks video with the moms saying these, in my opinion and many others!, horrible things about their children. These moms say things like they never get breaks, how they basically wish their children were “normal”, and what I found the most relevant in relation to Viktor was that these moms talk about how their lives have changed for the worst because of their children.
And that brings me to my 100th point, is it problematic to compare Creation to a person with disabilities? The whole time when I was writing my notes I was like wow the parallels, amazing!! But when I thought of my last point about Viktor being compared to a parent of a disabled child, I started thinking that isn’t it a little off to say that Creation, someone who has killed people VERY purposefully, can be the same as a disabled person? Like for example with my point (I am contradicting myself, but gimme a second) about Viktor being like one of the Autism Speaks moms, Viktor was tired of Creation because he was threatening him and his loved ones and had already taken many of them out of his life and he lived in fear of Creation hurting more people, is that not a valid reason to not want to be around Creation?
BUT! That brings me to my next, almost last I promise, point. In Chapter 24, when Creations finds Viktor’s dead body, he cries. He starts talking about he admired him and how he hates himself now. Creation shows genuine remorse for what has happened. Creation is not this cold, heartless monster that was killing people just to kill. He was killing for the same reason many people do, out of anger. OBVIOUSLY, murder is wrong and it doesn’t matter that the person was angry, but this shows that Creation does actually have emotions if for some reason the entire book wasn’t enough proof. And a huge stereotype among disabled people, specifically the Autism community, is that they are cold and unfeeling. But as we see, Creation is obviously showing emotion and even communicating how he feels and completely goes against what Viktor thought of him as and goes against the aforementioned stereotype.
Over all what I got from Frankenstein was that it can be a great example for the discussion on what is disability especially if you use Linton’s inclusive definition. Some who disagree with Linton’s definition could say that Creation is not disabled. Creation is able bodied, he does not express any trouble with mobility. He has no issues with verbal communication and he knows German and English. The only reason he is rejected by others is because of he looks and I know, he is made up of corpse body parts and has a very “gruesome” appearance, but his facial and body “deformities” are the only reasons he is being treated that way. What I believe is that Creation is disabled because society is disabling him. It all goes back to the discussion we had on the first day of class. A person in a wheelchair is only disabled when society is disabling them. Someone in a wheelchair can have a job, go to school, etc, but the second they are faced with an inaccessible area, that is society disabling them. No, their disability doesn’t just go away and come back when faced with an issue like this, but they are not disabled BECAUSE they are in a wheelchair, they are disabled because society doesn’t allow them to have that accessibility because having accessible areas is seen almost as a reward, like yay we finally made this place accessible when EVERYTHING should accessible always. So, back to Creation. He falls under this sort of example. No one wants to look at how “ugly” he is and they see him as a monster. That is a hinderance on him. That idea people have about him is what is disabling him.
I pledge
TL;DR: Readings good, Frankenstein amazing, see ya’ll on Tuesday!
Edit #1 11:14 AM: I misread the syllabus and thought we had to finish Frankenstein by 1/23 and I posted a huge spoiler, but I deleted it and I will repost those points after our class on 1/28.
Edit #2 12:28 PM: I have added the previous points!
