Literary tropes are used by authors as a means of figurative language in literature, i.e. they are a figure of speech in which words are used with a nonliteral meaning (“Trope” 1). With this in mind, readers come across the utilization of literary tropes in certain works of American literature. Specifically, readers encounter tropes in the short stories, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, and “A Distant Episode” by Paul Bowles. Within these stories, disability is the literary trope that is explicated. In the literal sense, disability, in most cases, is a physical “restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being” (Lefers 1). However, in reference to the mentioned exemplars of literary trope, the authors of these works indicate that disability is not always physical. Rather, it can be mental, that is to say, one who is “disabled” cannot comprehend a particular conception. In the midst of disability in these stories, a sense of superiority is expressed by the main characters and each has a self-realization of some sort that extinguishes their feeling of arrogance. First and foremost, the literary trope of disability is found in the short story, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. In summary, the story follows a couple who house a blind man for the night. The husband is our narrator and the narrator’s wife (neither of the spouses’ names are revealed to readers) declares that her friend, Robert, is coming to visit them. Robert is a blind man whose wife has recently died. The narrator’s wife met Robert while she worked as a reader to the blind. The narrator is not keen upon Robert coming to lodge at his home and is disconcerte... ... middle of paper ... ...pewell, and the Professor learn that their once thought superiority over others is truly a flaw of character, that is to say a disability. All in all, simply because one is physically disabled does not mean they are intellectually incapacitated. As a matter of fact, those who are “physically able” may well be intellectually immobilized. As the once great Sioux Indian, Black Elk said “the power of it was in the understanding of its meaning” (Neihardt 169). This statement runs true in the present day for many people take for granted the physically disabled and act superior to those who cannot walk, talk, see, or hear. Understanding the meaning of things is power. Coming to that realization is an event that will strengthen a person and allow them to live better. In a nutshell, knowledge may be power, but sorry Sir Francis Bacon, fathoming conceptions is a superpower.
The problems that Carver covers in the story are fairly similar and related to modern society enough so it’s not just toward a single individual. On the other hand, we see human beings similar to the “blind man” who are handicapped when in fact, they display a more accurate inspiration into everyday life and their own peers. Also, they have the ability to see different things and understand other people through their own world. From the story we learn that disabled people have a better grip on understanding life. Sometimes experiencing the troubles of life helps us learn in a different way than we normally would.
I can truly say after reading Cathedral by Raymond Carver the point of view the husband had about the blind in the beginning of the passage made me feel as if I was in his shoes. Like him my view of the blind has change quite tremendously. If it was not for his wife who invited an old friend of hers Robert, who is blind, to their home and actually having the opportunity to see what a real blind man was like, her husband would have never changed his perspective of the blind. With the opportunity of his wife and Robert the husband has undergone a change in his view of blind people in movies as disturbing and bothersome, to just viewing the blind as human beings and realizing their view of the world “is really something”.
In the non- fiction Novel," Girl, Stolen", by April Henry we learn that having something traumatic happen to you can change the whole outcome of your life. When a teen girl ends up blind from an accident that flips her whole world around she has to tend to help. Though she doesn't she see herself any different from a regular person people see her disability. Though many people see disabilities as a problem that won't put a label on someone's will to fight.
Throughout history there has always been drawings or photography which depicts everyday life. There has been photography of the elderly, deceased, disabled and even adolescents, but as with any sort of media, it did not always help the subject. Rosemarie Garland- Thomson in her essay entitled The Politics of Staring: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography states that when specifically looking at photos of people with disabilities, “ None of these rhetorical modes [the wonderous, the sentimental, the exotic and the realistic] operates in the service of actual disabled people” (Garland-Thomson 59). In the same way photography cannot help the subject, in Garland-Thomson’s case those with disabilities photography can also be misconstrued in order to help the viewer and promote their own ideals. To quote Garland-Thomson, “[photographs] elicit responses or persuade viewers to think or act in certain ways.” (Garland-Thomson 58). This response can go two ways depending on the photo, it can either be helpful or destructive. The
Helen Keller may be the world's most famous supercrip. Very few people can claim to have "overcome" disability so thoroughly and spectacularly. A blind and deaf wild child at the age of 7, she became, by the time she published The Story of My Life at 22, one of Radcliffe's most successful and polished students, fluent in Latin, Greek, German, French and (not least) English--not to mention three versions of Braille (English, American, New York Point) and the manual alphabet in which her renowned teacher Anne Sullivan first communicated with her. But let me dispense with the scare quotes for a moment. Helen Keller is famous--and justly so--precisely because she did, in many respects, overcome the physical impairments of deafness and blindness, as well as the formidable social obstacles facing people with disabilities at the end of the nineteenth century. Her story retains its power to startle and inspire even now, just as Anne Sullivan's story remains among the most startling and inspiring tales in the history of pedagogy.
Cathedral is a short story written by Raymond Carver in 1983, about a prejudiced man who meets a disabled man. Through “Cathedral,” It becomes clear that the visit of the blind man Robert in the narrator’s house may change the narrator from stereotyping to accepting disabled people; this illustrates Carver’s theme which displays human Insensitivity through the narrator’s reluctance because of fear, then acceptance, and finally understanding of Robert.
For example, the text states, “ The H-C Men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen year old son, Harrison away. It was tragic all right,but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard.”. This proves how George and Hazel had forgotten that their son got taken away and that proves how unsuccessful this society was. Also, the text states, “ It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas has collapsed on the studio floor.were holding their temples.”. This proves how the fact that people had to be handicapped shows how the people of the society are behaving more like robots rather than acting human and having human connections. In conclusion, the story creates a falling society unless accompanied by
Tanya Titchkosky’s perspective on blindness and disability has made me question how I should act around those that I consider “disabled.” Would I be helping them or would I be intruding their space and doubting their capabilities because I am considered as “normal?” It really is all about the ambiguity, the in between that Titchkosky states that really gets
In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared.
One of the most striking themes of the book was do not judge a person based upon their disabilities. In the book, the case studies were very unique. However, there was some bias that the author provided, and the talents of each of the patients was overlooked. For example, many of the patients had a debilitating disorder that
On the surface, blindness gets treated just like any other major disability in our culture. However, the absence of the common ability to see can be exceptionally polarizing for both the blind and the sighted person involved. Eyesight is an exceedingly fundamental and uniting gift that has drastically shaped the way humans perceive the world and continually shape their every thought. Regrettably, this can sometimes characterize blind people as being somewhat alien to some people. They lack one of the most basic forms of common ground on which to relate. For some people, this can be an uncomfortable barrier, while others will immediately accept and cherish their company without a second thought. These are precisely the two contrasted reactions depicted in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”.
A popular early twentieth century belief about disabled people can perhaps be best summarized Julian Huxley, Aldous Huxley's brother: "Every defective man, woman, and child is a burden. Every defective is an extra body for the nation to feed and clothe, but produces little or nothing in return" (CITATION!) Thus,
During this speech, I learned a lot of elements about disability. Smith says that disability is something we want to see. I thought of the Walking Dead. Even though I am not a die-hard fan, the fact that some of the zombies may or may not have limbs intrigues me. I focus on their movements and wonder how they are going to get in contact with the characters. Smith states that moving images often manipulate disabilities to produce an unable feeling. Amputation is shown as bad thing. It is often shown as a dragging, crawling or depressing inferiority. They are often shown as not being able to convey anger because they are helpless. The example of a man being angry and falling from his chair in Forest Gump was a great representation of this. The disable moves are shown as depressed, sad and only drag and or fall. The viewer feels distance from the amputee because they don’t have what would be considered to be abled body. It is displayed as inferior to regular movement. One man shared his story of not having legs and used crawling as an uplifting experience. He also had a very intellectual profession which showed that he was not a helpless man because of this lack of having legs. He was just like any normal
There are over three million people in the US have a disability in 2015, according to the Disability Statistic. There are some of them born with as a disabled person and some of them have a disability due to accidents or sickness. Handicapped people tend to disappointed about themselves and see themselves as a useless person. In addition, there are many different types of disabilities. The most prevalent cases are hands or legs defect. People who are incapable of using both hands or legs have to face many obstacles in their lives. This might be a reason for someone to invent the new technology as known as the prosthetic limbs.
Within Devoteeism, the portrayal of disabled women misrepresents and praises them for their fragility, vulnerability and (almost) contradictory capacity to “overcome” adversity, by Devotees, a group made up primarily of able-bodied men. This archetype of the disabled body is a reproduction of the normative body, taken to the extreme. As discussed in “Narrative Prosthesis”, the authors suggest that “the narrative deployment of disability hinges on the identification of physical and cognitive differences as mutable categories of cultural investment.” (P. 16). Within our culture, we misconstrue disability to be a non-sexual identity because the physical impairment within bodies can render them to be incapable of normative sex, which is subsequently interpreted through ableism as an incapacity to have normative desire. In the Devoteeism community, instead of de-sexualizing the disabled body, this community gathers around the idea of the “grotesqueness” of the disabled body, as an object of desire, wherein physical impairment is a hypersexual site of