Word Count: 67.6<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Disabilities,\nboth physical and developmental, have lasting effects on both the individual\nwith one or more disabilities, along with those who help care for the\nindividual. Yet unfortunately, society can be negative with projecting a lack\nof empathy and understanding for the individual and the challenges they face on\na daily basis. In both Of<\/em> Mice<\/em> and<\/em> Men<\/em> and To<\/em>\nKill<\/em> a<\/em> Mockingbird<\/em>, we are presented with two stories\nwhich incorporate disabilities, and how others treat the disability as\nsomething to fear or discriminate, instead of people putting themselves in the\nshoes of that individual to try and see things from their perspective. And\nsadly, we continue to see such fear and discrimination even to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nthe novella Of<\/em> Mice<\/em> and<\/em> Men<\/em>, we meet the character\nof Lennie; a tall, somewhat muscular individual who is intellectually\nchallenged with not knowing his own physical strength, and who\u2019s unable to adequately\nprocess the consequences of his actions before having carried them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lennie\u2019s\ncaretaker George throughout the story, defends Lennie and tries to get Lennie\nto act as close to a normal person as Lennie is capable. When George tests\nLennie on what he is going to do upon arriving at the ranch, Lennie thinks for\na moment before replying back that \u201c[he] ain\u2019t gonna say nothin\u2019\u201d (p. 6),\nsignaling that George didn\u2019t trust Lennie to stay out of trouble, especially as\npeople could openly discriminate against intellectual disabilities back during\nthe depression era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While\nGeorge cared for Lennie at times throughout the story, his attitude and actions\nat times were clearly challenged I feel, in seeing Lennie as a liability of\nsorts. For example, he didn\u2019t want Lennie to talk when they first arrived at\nthe ranch, he was iffy about trusting Lennie with a puppy, and at the end of\nthe story when the small gathering of ranch workers set out to track Lennie\ndown following the death of Curley\u2019s wife, George takes it upon himself to kill\nLennie by his own hands before the mob could reach them. Whether George saw the\nkilling of Lennie as an act of mercy to avoid being hanged by the mob who were\nhunting for him, or if it was for a more personal reason such as allowing\nGeorge to be free of what had been holding him back for such a long time, we\nmay never know. Yet, George struggled to put himself in Lennie\u2019s shoes, often electing\nto talk down to Lennie as a child who would never amount to anything on his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nthe beginning of Lee\u2019s To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>, we then see how young\nchildren can be affected and made to fear someone based on rumors alone,\nparticularly if the target of the rumors has a disability. When the children\nhear stories about the Radley house and of how when Arthur (Boo) Radley was\npurportedly trying to kill his parents in a calm, psychotic manner, his father\ninsisted afterwards that Arthur not be locked up in any asylum (p. 12). But the\nneighborhood began spreading rumors which reached the impressionable minds of\nchildren, instilling a sense of fear about the house. Children feared the\nhouse, and when Dill challenged Jem to try and lure either Boo, or his elder\nbrother Nathan Radley out of the house, Jem was clearly scared to go near the\nhouse, until the terms of Dill\u2019s dare were altered to just touching the side of\nthe house. But kids would vividly imagine the pecan nuts from the Radley yard\nto be poisoned (p. 10). That jumping to conclusions and fear which had been\ninstilled in the minds of local children, meant that along with most adults in\nthe region, no one wanted to even associate with the Radley family because of\nthe misunderstanding over Boo\u2019s (as of yet unknown) intellectual disability.\nThat fear leads the children to pull stunts of ridicule against the family,\nsuch as the dare given to Jem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nfound both stories interesting as someone who has been bullied for intellectual\ndisabilities in the past (notably as a young child when classmates and teachers\nwould ridicule me for daydreaming in class and not finishing homework on time\/scoring\npoorly on tests). Indeed, it wasn\u2019t until I was 14 that I was diagnosed with\nAttention Deficit Disorder without Hyperactivity, and I\u2019d had it engrained into\nme by peers and a few teachers prior to that point, that I was stupid and would\nnever amount to anything. So having re-read Steinbeck\u2019s Of Mice and Men<\/em>,\nas well as being introduced to Lee\u2019s To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em> was certainly\nable to in one sense, remind me of my past and the work we as individuals and society\nin general have, to help bridge the gap of fear, prejudice, and\nmisunderstandings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hereby pledge upon my word of honor,\nthat I have neither given, nor received, any unauthorized aid in this\nassignment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n -Richard Yeomans.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Word Count: 67.6 Disabilities, both physical and developmental, have lasting effects on both the individual with one or more disabilities, along with those who help care for the individual. Yet unfortunately, society can be negative with projecting a lack of empathy and understanding for the individual and the challenges they face on a daily basis. … Continue reading “Richard’s Response to John Steinbeck\u2019s Of Mice and Men and Harper Lee\u2019s To Kill a Mockingbird.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcJhts-sa","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1747,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}