To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird: The Frailty of Disability

To Kill a Mockingbird contains a lot of themes regarding the issue of discrimination in regards to disability. In an attempt to demonstrate the struggle that many disabled people go through, Lee’s narrative focuses on a disabled African American man struggling to find his way through a trial of a crime he didn’t commit. This has especially been apparent by the fact that he was both African American and disabled. To Kill a Mockingbird centers on themes of the present discrimination within disability as seen in Tom’s discrimination, Boo Radley’s struggle to unveil himself, and the treatment Atticus receives for supporting Tom.

For the bulk of the book, Tom ultimately is the one that receives the most amount of discrimination for being African American. This is shown most clearly through the trial that he is forced to be a part of. Throughout the trial, Tom finds that he is treated unfairly, most of the evidence being against him. In one of the arguments that is made against him, “Tom Robinson hesitated , searching for an answer, ‘Looked like she didn’t have anybody to help her, I says’” (Lee 204). In this scene, the pressure that Tom feels shows how much of the court is biased against him. This is further exemplified through some of the names that the judge calls him, such as “But you weren’t in a fix—you testified you were resisting miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she’d hurt you, a big buck like you?” (Lee 225). The derogatory term of “big buck” demonstrates how Tom was judged by his appearance. Tom’s race and disability prevented him from getting fair treatment. Ultimately it is sad that these were the defining traits that the judge saw, preventing him from becoming more acquainted with Tom. It shows the extra weight that race holds with disability.

Another aspect that Harper Lee tries to put a lot of emphasis on is the isolation disabled people go through. This exhibits itself through the life of Boo Radley. In the beginning of the book, Scout described “the Radley’s kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb” (Lee 14). Considering that isolation was an unforgivable predilection, it shows how Boo Radley was discriminated based on a mental illness that he had. Lee uses Boo to show the struggles he had with his disability interfered with his communication with the people in the society. After some time, Boo comes out and Scout come to have a more mutual understanding towards him, especially after he took care of Jem. With this, Scout says “The Radley’s place had ceased to terrify me, but it was no less gloomy” (Lee 247). This goes to show that she has overcome her initial fears and speculations she had of Boo Radley. Ultimately she came to have a more mutual understanding for Boo because she came to know him as a person. Unfortunately, based on the fact she still saw gloom on the house, the rest of society probably would never come to accept Boo Radley for who he really was. No matter how hard he tried, he would always be alienated for his disability by the greater society. This shows that the disability he had will always leave a mark on his social standing. The development of Scout’s understanding towards Boo Radley demonstrates how misunderstood many people with disabilities are.

Finally, Lee tries to expose how the insults of one individual can affect the welfare of the other. Through the character of Atticus Finch, it is seen that he is insulted because he does not believe that Tom did any wrong. When he is talking to Jem and Scout about how he was insulted by two other men for his defense of Tom, he states “‘There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried’” (Lee 238). In this sense, he is saying that people exist within their own independent selves, unable to understand anything that is outside of it. This applies to Lee’s theme of the stigmatization of disability because the reason most of the disabled characters are misunderstood has to do with the fact that people do not want to comprehend an individual that is different. The reason people like Tom received an unfair trial without good evidence had to do with how they refused to understand his status as a disabled and African American person. Because Atticus was the only person that was willing to understand Tom, he too becomes stigmatized since they view that he is sympathizing with someone that is otherwise considered a disgrace to their society. Atticus goes further with this when he states “ ‘There is nothing more sickening than a low-grade white man who’ll take advantage of a negro’s ignorance’” (Lee 252). In this statement, Atticus is saying that a lot of white people seem to assume that African Americans are not that smart and easy to take advantage of. However, because Atticus is the only one that is able to understand that this is just a presumption, he gets made fun of for it because he has grown to see the holes within the white individual’s thinking. In this case, popular thinking tends to blind people because it is not based upon reasonable facts or logic. Instead, a lot of it is based on myth and unreliable data. The reason that Tom Robinson is accused of rape in the first place has a lot to do with the nature of his social standing over anything that he has done in the past. In the same vein, because Atticus is able to overcome these falsehoods, he is able to see the truth; however, it is not without the cost of losing the respect others once had of him.

To conclude, To Kill a Mockingbird carries many of the same weight that other literary works involving disability do. Many of the characters within the book find themselves becoming ostracized and being social outcasts because they do not have the means necessary to recover form the plight they are in. Most of the social woes that the characters of Boo Radley and Tom Robinson suffer from is because of their disability. All in all, To Kill a Mockingbird is very insightful with how it handles the frailties of disability.

Work Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Harperprennial. New York, New York. Modern Classics,

2002. Print.

Words: 1071

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Daniel

Adams Major Final Paper on Perception of Disability

Adams-MPP Download

I did my major project as a paper on the perception of those with disabilities, focusing on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I drew on different charecters, their lives, and their backgrounds to find examples and similarities with the perception disabled individuals. I also touched on how society has a tendency to place disabilites on people who may otherwise not have one in order to make sense of who that person is.

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.

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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.

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

Rachel’s Analysis of Joy Harjo’s The Woman Hanging From the Thirteenth Floor Window and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

In class, we have been talking a lot about the types of disabilities. A conversation has begun about what is considered a disability and the different definitions and models of disability. I have learned about certain illness/disorders that are considered by many to be a disability or disabling that I have never thought of in this context, such as addiction and/or drug abuse, age, etc. Another interesting topic of discussion is invisible disabilities. An invisible disability is a disability which is not immediately apparent to the outside world, and an example of this is mental illness.

In Joy Harjo’s The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window, the woman being described is not described as having a physical disability. This character is described as having a mind which differs from what society has deemed the normal way of functioning. She “hears voices… [which] come to her in the night when the lights have gone dim” (Harjo). These voices are implied to be auditory hallucinations, but she also hears the voices of the people outside her window. These auditory hallucinations can be caused by any number of things, but in addition to these hallucinations, the woman also seems to be suffering from depression.

The woman in the window seems to be in a similar situation as some characters from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Mrs. DuBose, along with some physical disability which causes her to have a mobility impairment, suffers from morphine addiction. Mr. Raymond also seems to have an addiction to alcohol (though we learn later that this is all an act to excuse his behavior). As discussed in our class, addiction is often considered a disability due to the individual having no control over their addiction and the disabling side effects.

In both of these works, an individual is described as having a disability which is not physical, but mental. It is interesting to look at the ways the characters are described. The general tone of the descriptions is different in each work. In Harper Lee’s novel, the characters who are suffering with their mental health issues are not very good characters. Mrs. DuBose is a mean old woman who throws around insults and is just generally crotchety, and Mr. Raymond, while not actually a drunk, still is representative of the connection between alcohol/drug addiction and ‘bad’ behavior. The representation is all around negative.

In Harjo’s piece about the woman hanging from the window, the tone is definitely a little bit depressing, but overall is not being judgmental and negative. There is a sense of hope at the end, where Harjo writes “as she falls from the 13th floor window on the east side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again” (Harjo). The woman is not with certainty doomed to fall to the ground. She is not set to meet the same fate as Mrs. Dubose, who would inevitably die regardless of whether or not she kicked her addiction, or as Mr. Raymond would spend the rest of his life pretending to be an alcoholic and acting the part. This woman was a daughter, a mother, a wife, and many other things other than just someone suffering. I think an even closer look at these characters would be a good idea.

Word Count- 548

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Rosemary’s Response to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Jillian Weise’s “Nondisabled Demands”

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Arthur “Boo” Radley is seen as the town’s crazy resident, who never leaves his home and has all sorts of negative rumors spread about him. Jem and Scout’s curiosity about Boo Radley leads them to seek answers and pry into his strange life. Meanwhile in Jillian Weise’s “Nondisabled Demands,” Weise describes the entitlement that nondisabled people have when it comes to knowing personal details about people who have disabilities. In both of these works, the authors dictate the exploitation that people with disabilities face from able-bodied and -minded people on a daily basis.

In the fourth chapter of Lee’s novel, Jem, Dill, and Scout are looking for something to do when Jem comes up with a new game to play. He says “‘I know what we are going to play… Something new, something different… Boo Radley’”(43). This is essentially a proposal to use what little knowledge they have of Arthur to role play as what they would understand to be a crazy person. Not only is this notion rude in that they are using a game as an opportunity to make fun of Arthur, but they are also planning to participate in false assumptions about who he is. In the next chapter, Dill says “‘We’re askin’ him real politely to come out sometimes, and tell us what he does in there’”(52). Yet again the children are using what they think they know about Arthur’s disability as a means of entertainment. They are hoping that he will have some wild stories to tell, or that he really will be a commodity that they can observe. Arthur’s disability is exploited by the children as they intend to use it for their own enjoyment.

Weise’s poem also approaches the entertainment value that many nondisabled people take in learning about the lives of people with disabilities. “We’ll rope you / to the podium and ask / What do you have?” (lines 13-15). The image of being tied to a podium is very indicative of the resentment that some disabled people feel when they are bluntly and frequently asked about their disability. Weise later writes “then we get to say / You’re an inspiration” (lines 17-18). She is highlighting the tendency that many nondisabled people have to pity disabled people and view their disability as something they had to overcome. This attitude is then applied to their own lives in the general notion of “if they can overcome that, what do I have to be upset about?” This in itself is exploiting the lives of disabled people to make themselves feel better, or better themselves. These nondisabled people are using the narratives of people with disabilities for their own benefits.

Overall, both authors exemplify the derogatory views that are associated with disabilities and push the reader to consider what it might feel like to constantly be exploited in such a way that Arthur Radley, the speaker in Weise’s poem, and many disabled people are.

Word Count: 516

I pledge. Rosemary Pauley