Of Mice and Men – dis/lit 20

Richard’s Final Exam Paper on Autism-Prompt #3

Richard Yeomans

Dr. Foss.

English 384-Section 01.

April 27, 2020

Word Count: 1225

Final Exam Essay: Prompt #3

In our society today, there is the beginnings of understanding for Autism and those who have been diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum. While we continue to see much misunderstanding within society at large, including those who fear Autism and parents who wish to blame their child’s diagnosis on an outside source such as vaccines, others chose to see the individual as a person instead of looking at them through a label from the spectrum. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, many states, including Virginia, utilized Eugenics programs as a means of punishing those whom the state saw as inferior genetically to the average person. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, we see hints of the character Lennie having traits which lend him to be on the Autism Spectrum, and how society viewed him as a menace because of his intellectual challenges. George would get frustrated with Lennie at times throughout, only to then see that Lennie was keeping what George taught him to heart. Yet it reflects how both historically and in the modern day, there is still much which needs to be done to raise awareness and end the negative views towards those who have been diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum.

While the novella remains a popular story for many students throughout the country, there are those who identify with Lennie and his personality. Throughout the story, he is treated as a subhuman character by others, including George at times who treats him as a mere child and not an adult. One such example near the start of the story was when George discovered that Lennie had “rescued” a dead mouse and was keeping it in his pocket as a pet. When George had thrown it away a second time, he then heard Lennie begin to cry at the thought of no longer having the mouse. George talked down to Lennie by then saying “Blubberin’ like a baby! Jesus Christ! A big guy like you” (Steinbeck 9). Indeed, Steinbeck had even dehumanized Lennie at the very beginning, comparing Lennie to a bear when he described Lennie’s dragging of his feet while walking as “the way a bear drags his paws” (Steinbeck 2).

Because Steinbeck frequently describes Lennie by his appearance throughout the novella, the reader risks developing, or ratifying, notions that Lennie is not normal. This in turn risks a subconscious determination of seeing others in a negative light based solely upon their differences to what society considers a normal human being. During the Great Depression, the reader also would have been confused about how George and Lennie were even together, as the common practice of families back in that period was to send people with disabilities to an institution. But importantly, though George at times is harsh in his attitude towards Lennie, he does care about Lennie and wishes to prove society wrong about Lennie. Though he told Lennie to be quiet, it was likely due to George knowing that is Lennie had spoken upon arrival, the ranch would have sent them away out of fear and the labels of society towards people like Lennie. George, however, wishes to prove the ranch owner, and society in general, that Lennie is just as capable of hard work, or perhaps even more capable, than the average ‘normal’ person. While Lennie is a hardworking individual on the ranch, George must guide him throughout and remind Lennie of his tasks to avoid getting fired. Lennie in turn looks at George with trust and relies upon George to help him in his daily activities and decisions.

There are several aspects to Lennie’s behavior which lends credence to the idea that his condition falls upon the autism spectrum. He is frequently seeking out the repetitive behavior throughout the story of wishing to pet soft items, which can also be thought of as self-stimulating (Murray 14). As previously noted, he is introduced to the reader with a dead mouse in his pocket which he pets frequently ass he and George are walking along towards the ranch, with George then throwing the mouse away across the river, only for Lennie to walked across and recover the dead mouse whilst fetching wood for a campfire. When George then throws the mouse away for a second time, Lennie argues that it is a comfort for him, He tells George that he “wasn’t doing anything bad with it… Jus’ strokin’ it,” which is our first view into the repetitive and comforting behavior which Lennie seeks out (Steinbeck 9). The reader is then informed by George that Lennie had destroyed a stuffed toy mouse which had been previously given to him. This behavior is reinforced by Lennie being too hard on his petting and stroking of puppies, with another character on the ranch named Slim having suggested that Lennie take a break from petting the puppies, with Lennie explaining to George that Slim told him he “better not pet them pups so much for a while” (Steinbeck 54). To which Lennie eventually kills one f the pups by being too aggressive in his petting.

Lennie continues his desire to seek out and pet soft objects when he comes across Curley’s wife and starts petting and stroking her hair. Unfortunately, when he is told to stop by her, Lennie becomes anxious and fears that she will tell George about his forcibly petting her hair against her wishes, and that George will punish him by not allowing him to pet the rabbits on their future plot of land. He acts out in a panic and ends up killing her, which then causes the realization that George is not going to be happy with Lennie and will punish him.

In Stuart Murray’s book Autism, he notes that autism “isn’t in illness” and that that fact is “sometimes lost in the labeling of the condition as a ‘disease’” (Murray 36-37). He goes on to then explain that even in the modern society, people tend to fear and misunderstand autism due to the fear of the unknown. Though our understanding has improved, there are many parents and general members of society to this day who fear autism as a disease, and are wary of those who have been diagnosed on the higher end of the autism spectrum, while certain other parents feel self-blame in their child being autistic (Murray 59).

In closing, though we as a society have made great strides with the arrival of advocacy groups intent on educating the greater public and families about autism, in the hopes of a wider acceptance of people as being equal and normal with those who are not on the autism spectrum, especially when compared to the 1930s when individuals were simply hidden from society under the guise of being “feeble-minded,” we have a long way to go unfortunately in obtaining full acceptance and equal equity to all Americans whether on the spectrum or not. Though George did work hard to try and bridge the gap between Lennie and the other workers and the owner of the ranch, he did achieve some successes along the way before the end of the story, notably with Lennie being allowed to continue working instead of being sent off upon noticing that he wasn’t “normal” in the eyes of society. And continued work will be needed to ensure full integration and acceptance going forward.

I pledge…

-Richard Yeomans.

Works cited

Murray, Stuart. Autism. Leeds: Routledge, 2012.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice andd Men. Penguin Books, 1937.

Project Write-up

Richard Yeomans

Dr. Foss

English 384-Section 01

April 24, 2020

Word Count: 453

Project Write-up

For my Major Project assignment, I actually partially referenced my own past in the story with regards to it having been the seventh grade that I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder after years of testing at the bequest of schools who would then be notified that I was too bright for the Special Education classes which they’d been trying to push me into. I also took reference from both John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men with how Lennie and George interacted, as Kevin has times where his internal mentality struggles between the two sides of a coin. The Lennie side of his mind (which drew on impulse), would try to do things such as hiding his homework to avoid doing it instead of playing video games or watching television, and George’s more logical side of the mind having to rein in such impulsivity to remind him of what happened the previous time he’d tried that. It also refers to Collin Craven from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden for the character of Sean who is trapped in a wheelchair (although in Sean’s case it was the result of spinal bifuda). Both Kevin and Sean are ostracized by their classmates for their perceived weaknesses.

I began with a rough layout after setting a character spreadsheet of who would be included, and then a general idea of the plot. Once that was completed, I then started on the rough draft of the story, typing it out before proofreading (I used the “Read Aloud” script reader on Microsoft Word to do this so as to remain impartial) and editing to see what worked and what needed to be tweaked/dropped. After that, I then retyped the final version for everyone’s enjoyment.

I enjoyed working on Kevin, because it gave me a chance to look at things from my past through not just the eyes of my own self, but from the eyes of others who had experienced it at the time, with even seeing the old reports from the school board in regards to my testing as a young child when the teachers would be pushing for me to be put in Special Education because they felt that they couldn’t handle me due to issues like frequent daydreaming and not wanting to do assignments (and the Special Education teacher at my most notable Elementary school hated her job and would sadly talk down about her students in front of the regular students all the time (frequently saying that her students were the “stupid kids of the school”)). And as there is always more than one lens to look at an issue through, it was certainly beneficial for me healing some of the wounds of the past.

Lueden Sheikhnureldin’s Major Project/Paper: Invisible Till Further Notice: Blackness & Schizophrenia

Lueden Sheikhnureldin

Dr. Foss

ENGL 384-02

April 23rd,2020

Invisible Till Further Notice: Blackness & Schizophrenia

Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia have been seen as synonymous with words such as ‘evil’ or ‘scary’ and so has being Black in America. In the 1960s, society saw a rise of Black people being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Most were being diagnosed shortly after being arrested during Civil Rights protests. The government used the traits of schizophrenia (hallecutions, disconnect from reality, psychosis, etc.) to say that what the Black community was fighting for was irrelevant because they were schizophrenic. These ableist diagnoses showed how society enforced the stigma that having a disability meant one can not have any valid thoughts or feelings. Not only do Black people already have to fight for their right to be heard, schizophrenic people have to as well because of the aforementioned stigmas. Having schizophrenia does not make one’s opinions and beliefs any less credible, but since this was not, and is still not, the socially accepted notion, this stigma was used against Black people to further promote the silence of the Civil Rights Movement. The basis for these diagnoses at the time were also extremely racially charged with factors such as “extreme aggression” and “irrational distrust of police officers and government officials.” This rise of schizophrenia being misdiagnosed for Black people would become detrimental to our society today where there are still racial disparities. Studies are showing that it is more likely that the people getting diagnosed have depression and not schizophrenia, but since depression is not considered a “Black disorder” it is not a possibility that crosses many doctors’ minds. Black disabled people have their disability erased as evident in numerous pieces of literature with Black disabled characters. These diagnoses are one of the very few moments where society recognizes Black disabled people as being a part of both identities instead of only seeing one and not the other, but they are recognized for ableist and racist reasons rather than actual validity.

The Civil Rights Movement had been going on for many years in the 20th century, but the heart of the movement was in the 1960s. The Black Panther party was becoming more visible to non black people, public boycotts were making headlines, and even children in primary school were participating. This newfound platform was not ideal for members of the U.S. government who refused to let the Black population gain any of the rights they were fighting for. There were many means of intervention by the U.S. government such as the F.B.I.’s assisantion of Black Panther Party member, Fred Hampton, constant incarcerations of Black people, and admitting numerous Black men into, what were then called, insane asylums for schizophrenia. This rise in schizophrenia diagnoses was the most shocking to historians because prior to the ‘60s, schizophrenia was mainly diagnosed to white women who did not perform their motherly or wifely duties to their husbands’ liking. (Metzl 13) The majority of schizophrenic patients were Black men, more importantly, Black men who had some sort of connection to the Civil Rights movement whether it was attending boycotts or working with Black advocate leaders. (Metzl 14) Schizophrenia diagnoses changing from predominantly white women to predominantly Black men was not a mere coincidence. The diagnosis of schizophrenia had changed from non threatening hysteria to aggressive paranoia. (Pride) A lot of the ‘new’ symptoms were also extremely racially charged. Irrational distrust of authority, extreme hostility, and something white doctors called protest psychosis. (Metzl 16) Protest psychosis was the notion that participating in protests drove Black men to madness and the intent behind that was an attempt to show how ‘awful’ the Civil Rights Movement was and why Black people who were involved could not be trusted.

The most famous example of a Black man who was affected by the schizophrenia rise is civil rights advocate, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. More commonly known as Malcolm X. While Malcolm X was never admitted into a psychiatric ward, he was arrested and investigated heavily by the FBI. (Haley & X 145) In declassified FBI documents, historians found that the FBI had diagnosed Malcolm X with pre-psychotic paranoid schizophrenia. (Pride) The media was not aware of this government issued diagnosis till after his death, but Malcolm X had been painted by the media as a ‘crazy and insane’ man for his entire career. His distrust and paranoia of governmental authority heightened as he became more prevalent in the movement because the FBI were taping and constantly profiling him. (Gadek) Those reasons did not fit the narrative that the media wanted to paint. They wanted people to believe the government wasn’t doing anything behind anyone’s backs and that Malcolm X and other Black people who were distrustful of them were simply crazy. Oppressors would use ableist words such as crazy, insane, and psycho as a way to discredit Black people and the Civil Rights Movement. By doing this, they promoted an ableist mentality that people who are not able minded can not possibly have anything valid to say because their mental state does not “allow” them to have ‘coherent’ thoughts and that having a mental illness is a bad characteristic. This assigning of negative connotations to mental illness also led bigoted people to believe that being crazy and being Black were synonymous since they were both considered ‘bad’ things. Malcolm X did not deny any of those ableist allegations, but instead responded to these claims with that he was crazy, not because he was Black, but because society’s racism drove Black people to madness. (Haley & X 231) This response was seen as revolutionary; Malcolm X had used the word crazy to advance himself and his agenda instead of being silenced or flat out denying it. Malcolm X’s rebuttal was also seen as empowering because he was calling for people to critique the racism in society and not the people being affected by racism. (Pride) Another way Malcolm X not responding with simple denial could be seen as empowering was that it was him ending the notion that being mentally ill meant that one could not be trusted.

Calling someone crazy as a political weapon enforces the mentality that mentally ill people can not have valid opinions or coherent thoughts. Even in present time, people throw words like crazy around without thinking of its implications. Schizophrenics especially have to deal with the socially accepted ideology that they are “not in control” of themselves and should not be trusted. (Brune) The idea that people with psychotic disorders are not everyday civilians who go to school, work, and live typical lives, but instead are violent criminals stems from the diagnoses of Black men in the 60s. (Metzl 32) Black men became the poster children for schizophrenia and since they were most often incarcerated prior to the diagnosis, schizophrenia, criminality, and Blackness all became synonymous. Those diagnoses had long term effects on the Black community to this day. Rutgers University conducted a study where they assessed the Black men who were getting diagnosed with schizophrenia and found more similarity to major depression than schizophrenia. The racial disparities with schizophrenia in our current time has not radically changed when compared to the 60s’. Those racist studies have thrown off the data for schizophrenia, so it is now “more common” for Black people to be schizophrenic, so doctors do not consider depression or anxiety for their Black patients. This is an issue because antipsychotic medications are extremely strong and should not be taken by people who do not have schizophrenia. (Rutgers University) The side effects of taking such drugs have been compared to that of a lobotomy procedure. (Mollow) Numbing of the mind and extreme lack of motivation are the most common. According to the Rutgers studies, the Black students who were taking these medications were doing worse in school and had frigenthing shifts in personality. These misdiagnoses are killing Black minds and it is all because of biased studies that were more than half a century ago. Black people do not get diagnosed with depression and anxiety as much as white people because those are not seen as Black disorders. There is a hierarchy with mental disorders where psychotic disorders are the scary, unredeemable disorders while depression and anxiety are seen as “less serious”. (Donaldson) Not only does it undermine the experiences of people who have any of these disorders it also enforces the racial bias with diagnoses. Since psychotic disorders are the “scary” ones, it must be the Black disorder.

Disability and Blackness are connected, but not in the racist and synonymous way that is forced onto the Black disabled community. Being Black does mean one is inherently mentally ill and the notion that they are is ableist. Pickens’ book, Black Madness :: Mad Blackness, she rethinks the relationship between the two as being mutual. On page 3 of her introduction she writes, “In an ideological construct of white supremacy, Blackness is considered synonymous with madness or the prerequisite for creating madness. To push them (Blackness and madness) together syntactically runs the risk of appearing repetitive, but it also prompts the possibility that the two must be parsed.” Pickens’ idea of parsing Blackness and Madness in Black texts specifically is done so because of the aforementioned white supremacist construct. Black disabled people are rarely ever recognized as both Black and disabled unless it fits the racist and ableist narrative people want to paint. For example, in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, we are introduced to the character Crooks who is a Black man with a hunchback. In high school classes when analyzing this text, students are encouraged to look at characters with several lenses, class, race, and disability. These lenses are usually taught to be very specific in the sense that if one views a character with a race lens, they can not view the same character with a disability lens. The character Crooks is rarely ever considered to be physically disabled even though other white characters with similar disabilities are. Another example of a Black character disability being erased is the character Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Said character’s left arm is described to a foot shorter than his right and his left hand is small and shriveled. The only time this is mentioned is when he is on trial and they have to prove that he could not have possibly hurt the victim because the injuries could not have been done by someone who has no usage of his left arm. Later in the book, there is a white disabled character, Boo Radley, who kills a character who tried to hurt the main characters and instead of trailing Boo, the detective argues that because of his disability it would not be right since he already has so much trouble. Yet, everyone in the book felt fine trialing Tom Robinson who is also disabled. If literature can not recognize characters as both Black and disabled, this is simply a reflection of white dominated societal beliefs. Unless a person can be shown as disabled as a direct result of their Blackness, then society sees no need for their disability and their race to be mentioned.

This erasure of disability is evident in other parts of history. In Anne Finger’s piece, COMRADE LUXEMBURG AND COMRADE GRAMSCI PASS EACH OTHER IN THE CONGRESS OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL ON THE 10TH OF MARCH, 1912, ends with Finger talking about how these two political figures had their disabilities hidden by history. Disability is viewed as a sign of weakness and since we should believe that these historical leaders are strong and ‘perfect’, then their disability should not be mentioned unless needed. We learn about Helen Keller in school, but only that she is a Deaf and Blind person. History books make no mention of her activism and politics because her beliefs don’t fit the image they want to paint about disabled people. This is parallel to what happens to Black disabled people, but with the added layer of anti-Blackness. A Black man committing an act of violence is an aggressive thug, but a white man doing the same is society’s fault for not helping the mentally ill. Then on the other, white supremacist hand, Black people are also crazy and agressive, so they need to be diagnozed with something just as ‘evil’ like schizophernia to ‘prove’ how unstable they are. Disability and Blackness are viewed simply as tools for white people to pick and choose what story they want to tell. The result of this are factors like the rise of schizophrenia in the 60’s which was one of the few times Black disabled people were visible for both identities, not for the actual validity in their identities, but for racist and ableist ideologies that only seek to benefit the white and abled dominated society.

I pledge

Word Count: 2,133

Works Cited

Brüne, Martin, et al. “Social Skills and Behavioral Problems in Schizophrenia: The Role of Mental State Attribution, Neurocognition and Clinical Symptomatology.” Psychiatry Research, vol. 190, no. 1, 2011, pp. 9–17., doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2010.03.015.

Donaldson, Elizabeth. “Beyond A Beautiful Mind: Schizophrenia and Bioethics in the Classroom.” Disability Studies Quarterly, dsq-sds.org/article/view/4635/3934.

Gadek, Emily. “Segregating Schizophrenia.” BackStory, 2014, www.backstoryradio.org/blog/segregating-schizophrenia/.

Haley, Alex, and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ballantine Books, 1989.

Metzl, Jonathan. The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease. Beacon, 2011.

Mollow, Anna. “‘When Black Women Start Going on Prozac’: Race, Gender, and Mental Illness in Meri Nana-Ama Danquah’s Willow Weep for Me.” Gale Literature Resource Center, 2006, go-gale-com.umw.idm.oclc.org/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA157947339&v=2.1&u=viva_mwc&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w.

Rutgers University. “African-Americans more likely to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, study finds: The study suggests a bias in misdiagnosing blacks with major depression and schizophrenia.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 March 2019. .

Pickens Therí A. “What’s Good?” Black Madness:: Mad Blackness, Duke University Press, 2019, pp. 1–22.

Pride, Felicia. “Schizophrenia as Political Weapon.” The Root, 2010, www.theroot.com/schizophrenia-as-political-weapon-1790878403.

Rachel Mullins’ Final Paper on The Infantilization of Adults with Disabilities in Literature

The representation of individuals with disabilities in literature has come a long way ince the beginning. In more recent times, there has not only been a striking increase in the representation of the many different kinds of disabilities in literature, but also an increase in the accuracy of the representation of the disabled characters and their disability. Nowadays one can find this inclusion and representation in almost any genre. It seems like many of the most important steps have been made, and are currently being made, to allow all different voices to be heard and different bodies to be seen. However, one unfortunate theme continues to resurface throughout both old and new works. This very common type of misrepresentation of disability is the infantilization of disabled characters. To infantilize is defined as “to make or keep infantile” and/or “to treat as if infantile” (Merriam-Webster). The infantilization of characters with disabilities, either by the original writer in their representations or descriptions of the disabled character or by their interactions with other characters in the piece, can be seen in slightly older pieces such as Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and some more recent pieces such as The Wedding of Tom to Tom by Keith Banner. In the end, this infantilization takes away from the actual realities of so many disabled individuals, and it also has the potential to be translated further into the real world by the readers of these works as they interact with individuals with disabilities.

To begin with arguably one of the most famous works involving a disabled character, the theme of infantilization in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men can be found aplenty in the character of Lennie. This piece is still being studied in Middle and High Schools across the country. The sorrowful story follows two men, Lennie Small and George Milton, as they are heading to a farm for work. The reader learns that Lennie and George are on their journey looking for work because Lennie had been involved in some sort of altercation with a girl from the last farm that they had worked at. Also revealed throughout the beginning of the story is that Lennie has some sort of cognitive disability. The reader comes to learn what motivates the two men to continue; they want to make enough money to own their own farm someday with a lot of rabbits for Lennie to pet and take care of. As they find work on yet another farm on their way through Northern California, more characters are introduced, and the audience gets a little more in-depth information regarding Lennie and the characteristics and nature of his disability.

Lennie’s character is definitely representative of infantilization. Lennie is repeatedly characterized as child-like throughout the novel, both outright and through the descriptions of his character and his actions. He is referred to as a baby multiple times. Lennie is described as “[b]lubberin’ like a baby” and being “[j]us’ like a big baby” (Steinbeck 43, 129). These comments are made by George, the person who is closest to Lennie and knows him the best. Slim also says to George that “[h]e’s jes’ like a kid, ain’t he.” and George of course agrees with this statement (Steinbeck 79). In addition to being outright described as a ‘baby’ and a ‘kid’ by other characters in the novel, George also calls him a “good boy” on two different occasions (Lawrence 4). This is much like one would praise a small child when they do something right. These examples all have in common the fact that they represent how Lennie is seen through and interacted with in the eyes of the other characters in the story. In addition, there are instances of the infantilization of his character that can be found in the descriptions of his actions by Steinbeck himself. In their piece called Is Lennie a Monster? A Reconsideration of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in a 21st Century Inclusive Classroom Context, Clare Lawrence mentions that “Lennie’s obedience (and at times his disobedience, transparent to George), his mimicry of George’s actions and his enthusiasm are all childlike” (Lawrence 4). The aforementioned mimicry occurs while at a small pool of water near the beginning of the story. Steinbeck writes that “Lennie, who had been watching, imitated George exactly. He pushed himself back, drew up his knees, embraced them, looked over to George to see whether he had it just right. He pulled his hat down a little more over his eyes, the way George’s hat was” (Steinbeck 37). Also, at one point while speaking to Slim, and a few other times in the story “George draws on Lennie’s childlike qualities to make him seem less threatening” (Chivers 4). This is done “in order to maintain employment”, because George needed to make sure that Lennie was trustworthy in the eyes of the other characters. (Chivers 4). Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men shows how infantilization can be represented through interactions between characters as well as author description of the individual disabled character.

It is important to note that this theme of infantilization is not limited to older works such as Steinbeck’s. The subject can also be seen in works written more recently. One good example can be found in Keith Banner’s collection of stories called The Smallest People Alive. Within this collection is a story called The Wedding of Tom to Tom. The story is narrated by a worker at a group home, but the story mostly follows two of the residents, Tom and Tom, or as they are often referred to in the story, Tom A and Tom B. Tom A and Tom B are in a romantic relationship with each other, and the narrator tells the story of beginning her job at the group home and being introduced to them in the start, and following all the way to the end of the story as Tom A and Tom B are married and go on their honeymoon. Along the way, there are other important characters such as the narrator’s ex-boyfriend and other minor characters, but for this analysis the most important characters are Tom A, Tom B, the narrator, and the other workers at the group home.

While it may seem like the story is far from infantilization due to some parts of the story, there are definitely plenty of examples of Tom A, Tom B, and other residents being treated so much like children. To begin, when Raquel (another worker at the group home) saw Tom and Tom sitting next to each other in the living room the morning after the narrators first shift, she said to the narrator that “’If you let them do that, they don’t know when to stop. They’ll get so into each other they’ll not know when to quit” (Banner 58-59). Raquel is letting the narrator know that there is an ongoing and perhaps unwritten rule to keep Tom A and Tom B away from each other if possible. This is to keep them ‘under control’. The manager, Kate Anderson-Malloy, even decides to relocate Tom A to prevent the two from seeing each other so much (Banner 63). Despite all of this, Tom A and Tom B do eventually get married. However, their entire wedding, beginning with the actual decision to have the ceremony at all and also including things like when it is to take place, where the ceremony occurs, who is invited to the ceremony, what the two grooms would wear, and the location they go to spend their wedding night is decided and planned for them directly by the staff at the group home. While the narrator does say that she had a discussion with Tom B about the wedding before it was actually planned, it never would have been able to happen without the support of the group home staff. Despite all of this, it can still most definitely be seen as a vast improvement over something like Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in terms of the representation of the characters with disabilities. Banner provides a look into the intersectionality between disability and sexuality and makes way for possible discussions about the cross-over between disability and other categories like race and gender identity.

No matter how minor, infantilization of disabled characters has occurred in the past and still occurs in literature as evidenced by the two works previously discussed. This has many potentially problematic implications for the real world. Beginning with the fact that the representations of disabled individuals in literature could affect how a reader might interact with someone in real life. While the work may or may not be fiction, the impact on the reader is most definitely real. Perpetuating these negative and untrue stereotypes is dangerous. According to Stevenson et al., “Adults with disabilities in general, and those with developmental disabilities in particular, have long been treated as childlike entities, deserving fewer rights and incurring greater condescension than adults without disabilities” (Stevenson et al.) The connection between stereotypical representation in the media and real life treatment is very real, and “[t]he stereotype of the “eternal child” has burned a disturbing path through history and continues to wreak havoc in arenas ranging from employment discrimination to forced sterilizations” (Stevenson et al.). As Stevenson mentioned, the many different stereotypes, specifically that of the “eternal child” affect the real life treatment of individuals with disabilities, and the infantilization of disabled characters in literature (both past and present) continues to perpetuate these extremely dangerous ideas, regardless of the intent.

It is easy to see the many instances of the infantilization of characters with disabilities in literature from the past and the present. This infantilization represents itself two ways. The first is through the interactions that the other, mostly non-disabled, characters have with the character or characters with disabilities. The second is through the descriptions by the author of the disabled character. Descriptions of their appearance, actions, thoughts, etc. can perpetuate the ideas of infantilization. Two specific pieces of literature which exemplify these concepts are John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Keith Banners short story The Wedding of Tom to Tom from his collection The Smallest People Alive. There are a lot of potentially very dangerous implications that can arise from the perpetuation of these stereotypes that can be translated into the real world, such as “employment discrimination [and] forced sterilizations” (Stevenson et al.). Because of this, authors should consider reevaluating the descriptions of and actions of their disabled characters so as to make sure they are represented truthfully.

Word Count: 1758 Excluding Header, Title, and Works Cited

Works Cited

Banner, Keith. The Smallest People Alive. Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2004.

Chivers, Sally. “Disability Studies and the Vancouver Opera’s Of Mice and Men.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 1, 2003, pp. 95-108.

Clare Lawrence. “Is Lennie a Monster? A Reconsideration of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in a 21st Century Inclusive Classroom Context.” Palgrave Communications, vol. 6, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1–8.

“Infantilize.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infantilize. Accessed 22 Apr. 2020.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Penguin Books, 2017.

Stevenson, Jennifer L, et al. “Infantilizing Autism.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3, 2011,

Alternate Ending to “Of Mice and Men”

Alternately titled, what could’ve happened if Curley’s wife had noticed. I really liked this book and how it played with morality, but one thing that really stuck with me about it was Curley’s wife and her death scene. To me, it seemed obvious that Lennie had been scared (of course it did, I was reading the scene), but to someone being held like that, I know it’s much harder to notice someone else in the midst of your own terror, but I couldn’t help but think that if Curley’s wife had taken just a few seconds to pause and look up at Lennie, everything would have been different. So, I wrote it.

Not only did I want to explore the idea of an ending where things don’t end badly for George and Lennie, but I also wanted to explore Curley’s wife’s character a little more. She is easily one of the most interesting characters in the book to me, and she is given such little representation, only to die at the end. She is an example of male jealousy, and how little power women had over their husbands at that time. She had no voice in the book, so in my creative writing project, I wanted to give her one. I tried to stay true to what little character we were given in the book and delve into her mind and what she may have been feeling while she was talking to Lennie and telling him her story. From what she told Lennie, she was very self-aware of what was happening with Curley and how he was treating her poorly but felt powerless to leave, and I wanted to expand on the idea of her past and what could have happened differently. While she was telling that story, she seemed almost obsessed with her past, like it is something that she thinks about and mulls over very often, and having no one to talk to, she would have a lot of time to think things over and obsess about what could have happened differently as well, so I took that idea and ran with it.

I wanted to highlight the power of decision in this piece. There are a few important decisions that I wanted to bring focus to, mainly Curley’s wife’s decision to listen to her mother when she said not to join the show, her decision to leave and marry Curley after not knowing him very well, her decision to stop struggling and notice Lennie’s fear aside from her own, and her decision not to tell anyone what had happened between her and Lennie. These decisions that she makes evolve as she moves through the piece, going from mainly self-serving to more empathetic towards Lennie the longer she talks to him, her last decision to not tell driven by both a self-serving motive, and one that takes Lennie’s feelings into account when she notes that not only would she not be able to talk to him again (which is all she really wants—someone to talk to), but if she told someone, Lennie could very easily be killed, and his dream of having a rabbit farm would die with him, just as her dream of being a showgirl died when she married Curley.

Here is a downloadable file of the alternate ending: it’s six pages and 2495 words.

MPP-omam Download

Mackenzie’s MMP. Poetry: The Motivations of a Caregiver

Mary Lennox’s Mother:

Disappointment

How can she be mine?

I don’t see myself in her eyes.

My beauty, my spirit, my status, it

becomes lost in her dull expression.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this

for mother and her daughter.

She’s sad, she’s difficult, she’s ill,

and I can’t hide my disappointment.

I wasn’t meant for a life like this.

I was expecting a life of ease.

She requires so much attention,

And I just don’t have the patience.

I’ll find somone capable, of course,

to watch her as she grows.

She’ll have eveything a child could want

I’m sure she’ll be just fine.

George:

Protection

I had you and you had me,

we had our futures set.

But it was a dream, just a fantasy,

I’m not sure where you fit.

I love you I really do,

we’ve been partners this whole time.

But I know what’s best for you,

and you don’t know where to draw the line.

It couldn’t be like this forever,

maybe it’s better me than them.

Close your eyes and look ahead,

and I’ll relieve you from this pain.

Eva Peace:

Liberation

To my shadow of a son,

It’s time for you to go.

If you can’t live like a man,

Then you’ll die like one.

That is my last act of love.

You wouldn’t leave and

you wouldn’t grow.

My womb has no more space,

so, this is where I say goodbye.

I’ll hold you and I’ll rock you here,

I’ll let you be my child.

But then I’ll keep my tears away,

And I’ll do what must be done.

Mr. Radley:

Self-preservation

The community whispers

outside our door.

Please just stay inside

where you can’t cause us more pain.

Joanne Madsen:

Concern

Who cares for you?

Who makes sure your safe?

Who listens to your worries?

Who asks what you want?

Who will be your advocate,

when you can’t speak for yourself?

Who knows what makes you happy?

Who tells you that it’s okay to be you?

Ricky Hernandez:

Sympathy

He looks at me with those sad eyes as I hold him in this room.

Just a driver, now in charge of discipline.

I want to show them kindness, respect, consistency.

These kids don’t see that often,

But my job is to to show up when I get the call,

to constrain and remove.

One day, probably soon, I’ll leave this place,

but I find myself hesitant.

I didn’t think it would be so hard.

I didn’t expect to love them so much…

Jimmie Kenrick:

Acceptance

Just can just call me Jimmie.

You don’t have to call me mom,

you don’t have to call me anything.

We have our own rhythm,

we have a special click,

we have an understanding.

You don’t have to call me mom,

you don’t have to call me anything.

You can just call me Jimmie.

I have created poems based on the point of view of various characters from novels we have read throughout the semester. These are characters that have found themselves in some sort of caregiver position. These characters include Eva Peace from Toni Morrison’s Sula, Ricky Hernandez, Jimmie Kenrick and Joanne Madsen from Susan Nussbaum’s Good Kings, Bad Kings, Mr. Radley in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Mary Lennox’s mother in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and George from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. These characters, whether parents, paid professionals, or friends, are put into the role of having to take care of someone with a perceived disability. All of these characters were chosen to represent a range of different types of caregivers and how successful they are in fulfilling their role. The first-person narratives allow for the exploration of the motivations behind these characters’ actions and the corresponding pieces reflect the character’s motivating emotion. Eva Peace was overwhelmed as her role of a mother of a child with a mental disability. Her son did not fit the expectations she had for him and that ultimately led her to orchestrate his death. This could be comapred to George killing Lennie in the end of Of Mice and Men. George was a friend but also a protector to Lennie. Throughout the novel they say they look out for each other, but it is never truly an equal partnership. George often acts according to what he feels is best for Lennie, but perhaps sometimes his actions are for selfish reasons. This raises the question of whether or not his killing of Lennie was really to protect his friend or to relieve himself from the stress of a caregiver position. Either way, he makes the decisions about what happens in Lennie’s life. Other caregivers, such as Mr. Radley and Mary Lennox’s mother, will keep their children at a distance. Maybe they can never accept their child’s differences or maybe they are unwilling to make the necessary adjustments to their own lifestyles in order to care for their children, either keeping them locked away in the house, as Mr. Radley does, or giving the responsibility to a paid worker, as Mary Lennox’s mother does.

There are positive examples of caregivers, too. Joanne Madsen, Ricky Hernandez, and Jimmie Kendrick from Good Kings, Bad Kings all behave more appropriately in their interactions with those they care for. Joanne, while not specifically a paid caregiver in the nursing home, offers the children guidence in accepting their identities as people with disabilities. She also looks after the best interest of all of the residence of the home. She treats the children as individuals and gives them room to grow and express themselves. Ricky, while he struggles with the ethics of his job, also tries to treat the children as individuals. He cares for them on a more emotional and personal level than many of the other paid professionals in the home. Lastly, Jimmie’s personal connection with Yessenia Lopez influences her decision to become her foster parent. All of these positive representations are similar in the way that they allow the other person to be an individual, not defined solely by disability. In cases where caregivers are unsucccessful in their roles, it is because they cannot accept the individual, whether that takes the form of making decisions about what happens to that person or releasing themselves from the caregiver role altogether.

I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work

Word count: 564

Amys Lesson Plan on Disability Treatment

Lesson Plan on Disability Treatment Download

Taking an interest in disability treatment and being in the special education program at UMW I designed a lesson plan focused on Of Mice and Men but including other texts from different cultures as well to compare and contrast the treatment of those with a range of disabilities. I have included The Treatment of Bibi Haldar as well as a portion of The Secret Garden into the lesson plan as comparison texts. All of these texts will be provided either digitally or physically. While focusing specifically on the treatment of characters by those able-bodied, the students will also be able to analyze the language used by these individuals. Is it demeaning? Are they meaning to be ‘mean’ to these characters or is it due to stress of not understanding how to be around someone with a disability? There are a lot of things to consider going into this lesson plan and one of those also is how we define disability. The lesson will be taught over a period of about a week slowly analyzing chunks of the literary pieces but also learning more about disabilities as a whole. While this may not be a unit present in many or even any English classrooms in the United States, it will still follow the curriculum set by the school for that year. This lesson is designed for Grade 10.

The goal of this lesson is to primarily show how the treatment of those with disabilities can change or be the same from culture to culture. We will begin with learning about disability in class on a broad spectrum and touching on different types of disabilities and how we see them now as well as common perceptions. Bringing awareness to how treatment in a general sense has changed and should change is truly important for this lesson. We will touch upon the Autism spectrum, Down Syndrome, Coffin-Lowry, Deafness, Blindness, Deforminites, and so forth to broaden the student’s idea and knowledge of what disabilities look like and consist of. While an older individual becomes disabled as they age, it will not so much be emphasized in this lesson because none of the characters are put out due to their age, only preexisting disabilities that cut their job short due to age. Culture drastically changes views, treatments, what is important and what is not. Within this lesson, we will learn how three different cultures dealt with a disabled character. The American South and India are drastically different even now in their treatment of those with disabilities, and this will be the primary focus of the compare and contrast opportunities given in class.

During this lesson students in the classroom that may have a disability will be included and put where they are most comfortable and will gain the same amount of understanding as others in the classroom. This will also help those who have not been around individuals with disabilities become aware that anyone could have one, it does not and will not always be apparent. Without calling out students who are listed with a high functioning disability, I will need to be aware of how these students are acting. Is it normal? Is this lesson making them uncomfortable and they are not as talkative due to that? These and many other questions will be going through my head during this week of teaching disability treatment in different cultures.

I pledge.

Amy Rouse

Word Count; 564

Taylor & Samantha’s Project and Write Up

Creative-Project Download

Due to being in the Special Education program at the University of Mary Washington, our project consists of a lesson plan that has been designed for 11th grade students and is centered around John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men. Wanting to present a lesson that is engaging and strategic, we decided to incorporate the jury trial system into the lesson. Each student will be given a copy of Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men and as they read the book, students will be taught how the legal system/jury trial system works. Students will then take what they have learned and will be asked to apply it to the novel. In order for students to apply it to the novel, they will be broken into groups and will be assigned roles. Instead of solely focusing on characters and their disabilities, students will think about the events that occur within the book and the classroom will be turned into a courtroom. Throughout Steinbeck’s novel, there are many “alleged” crimes committed and students will use information within the book to design court cases. In order to best assess the events within the book, students will be asked to focus on one event and to assign roles, such as defense attorney, prosecuting attorney, plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses to members within their groups. After assessing the crimes that have occurred, students will then be able to form a court case and prepare for a jury trial. Assessing students is an important aspect of being a teacher and in order to do so, we will turn the classroom into a courtroom and have the students present their cases. After the trials, teachers can grade students based on preparation, execution, persuasiveness of arguments, evidence, and level of seriousness.

The lesson plan created encourages students to think outside of the box and further analyze. There are aspects, such as disabilities, for students to consider when designing their court case and holding a trial. While the majority of the characters within the novel could be tried for specific actions, students need to consider how the character’s emotions and disabilities affected their actions. As an example, Lennie could be placed on trial for “murdering” Curley’s wife, but students need to determine if Lennie’s actions were due to his disability or if he meant to kill her. However, it will be interesting to see how students react to the events within the novel and whether decisions will be altered to accommodate disabilities that are present within.

Another aspect, as teachers, to consider is the fact that there are students with high functioning disabilities present within the classroom. In order to make sure that they understand and feel comfortable with the assignment, they will be placed in groups with students that have strong English abilities. Having students with disabilities present and involved in the trials will give other students in the classroom insight, which will hopefully better assist them with making decisions. Having diversified groups will impact the final decisions and will allow students to best analyze the situations they are dealing with.

Word Count: 512

I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work. – Taylor Butler & Samantha Rogers

Crooks, Isolation, and the Intersection between Race and Disability

In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the primary disabled figure is Lennie, a physically strong character with an intellectual disability. However, the secondary character of Crooks offers the perspective of a character marginalized not only by physical disability, but racial prejudice. Crooks’ response to isolation is to reclaim the site of his isolation as his own space, free from invasion by those who cast him out.

Crooks has a small shed off of the barn where he keeps his things and spends much of his time, avoiding the rest of the workers. He stays here alone, and the narrator describes him as a “proud, aloof man” who “kept his distance and demanded that others keep theirs” (Steinbeck 66). However, the narrative implies that his pride in his loner status is a response to the ableist and racist exile forced on him by the other workers. When Lennie, Slim, and Candy all end up visiting him, Crooks tries “to conceal his pleasure with anger,” implying that his pride, anger, and protectiveness of his own space are a defense mechanism (Steinbeck 73). Crooks explains on multiple occasions that the other workers won’t let him in the bunk house because he’s black. Even though both Candy and Crooks have lived on the farm for years due to their disabilities, racial prejudice keeps them apart, as Crooks cannot come into the bunk house and “guys don’t come into a colored man’s room very much” (Steinbeck 73). Isolated from the white community of the bunk house, Crooks tries to occupy himself with the solitary pursuits of horseshoes and reading, but even he admits to Lennie that the lack of companionship is bad for his mental health.

Crooks’ isolation from any support network is damaging to his mental health, a fact he acknowledges himself. When talking to Lennie, he says that “a guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody…don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you,” drawing a direct comparison to George’s assertion that he and Lennie are going to be okay because they have each other (Steinbeck 71). Crooks even goes so far as to describe himself as “sick,” describing how he sees things and isn’t sure if they were real or not without another person to verify it for him (Steinbeck 71). Despite his reluctance to invite people in or talk to the people who exclude him, Crooks pours his heart out to Lennie once he realizes that the combination of Lennie’s poor memory and his own marginalized status as a disabled black man means what he says will likely never get out (Steinbeck 69). Crooks claims that the specific companion doesn’t matter, since all he needs is someone to make sure he isn’t hallucinating, but his resistance when Lennie innocently invades his space and his delight when he realizes that Lennie isn’t a reliable witness (thus meaning he couldn’t check whether Crooks is hallucinating, the reason Crooks claims to want a companion) belies that sentiment.

Crooks’ relationship to others is complicated, shaped by years of prejudice and isolation. As a disabled man denied a support system due to racism, even the companionship of a fellow disabled man who lives and works on the same farm, Crooks turns to pride and self-reliance for survival. When speaking to Lennie and believing he can be vulnerable without Lennie repeating it back to anyone, he reveals that he knows the psychological toll his isolation causes, but his pride won’t allow him to tell anyone else. After all, his loneliness is not self-imposed, and abandoning these coping mechanisms won’t bring him a friend or companion. Crooks is bitter, proud, and aloof, but these aspects of his character are informed if not created by his status as a man at the intersection of two marginalized identities.