Depiction of Intellectual Disability in Fictional Literature
Dr Anupama Iyer
Email: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
Only a small minority of people have first-hand experience of knowing or indeed living with
persons with Intellectual Disability (ID).Despite this most people do hold an amorphous
image of what a person with Intellectual Disabilities looks like derived in part from how they
are depicted in fiction and by the media.
The author writing a fictional account is not obliged to be either medically accurate or
morally balanced in his description.
The very nature of the intellectual disabilities imposes some restrictions in not being able to
change, contest or confirm how they are portrayed by others.
The depiction of Intellectual Disability is portrayed by first person narratives or by
description of appearance and observable behaviours.
Subjective accounts
Descriptions of people with Intellectual Disability written in the first person are relatively
rare in fiction. There are inherent difficulties in fashioning a convincing internal voice for a
character whose life and experiences the author cannot share.
The success and limitations of subjective depictions are best exemplified in the character of
Benjy Compson in William Faulkner’s The Sound and Fury (1929).
Benjy’s narrative is diffuse and chaotic: events seem to coalesce, characters to wander in
and out. It is only when the novel unfolds that we realize how much of the narrative
Faulkner manages to convey through Benjy’s inchoate impressions.
Benjy own emotions however, are expressed in concrete physical terms. His love and longing
for his sister Caddy is conveyed through his preoccupation over her slippers. In describing
these precise minutiae of behaviour Faulkner uses his observations of Benjy’s real life model
to great effect (Halliwell, 2004).
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Physical Description
Describing the physical form of a character with ID has the advantage of visually delineating
the abstract concept of ID: a character who cannot be heard must be seen. It also plays on
the often unspoken assumption that people are as people look. This belief is so wide spread
that people with visible anomalies are often assumed to be intellectually disabled, even if
they are not.
Harper Lee in To Kill a Mocking Bird (1960) describes the intellectually disabled Boo Radley
as
…There was a long jagged scar that ran down his face; what teeth he had were yellow and
rotten, his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time”.(Lee, 1997 reprint: p.14)
Eccentricity suggestive of autism seems to go hand in hand with anomalies. Hilary Dickinson
(2000) has suggested that this device shields the reader from what she deems the “literary
inelegance” of ID. In addition it also serves the psychological function of distancing the
intellectually disabled figure from the reader in casting the disabled figure as the “other”.
(Gillman 1988)
Behavioural Descriptions
The casting of the intellectually disabled figure as the “other” is also achieved by calling on
distinctive mannerisms and nuances of behaviour.
John Steinback uses the simple act of drinking to signal his character Lennie’s disabilities in
this evocative passage in Of Mice and Men (1937):
“[Lennie] flung himself down and drank […] with long gulps snorting into the water like a
horse”. (Steinback, 2000 reprint: p.4).
Motives are attributed and causes are inferred regarding the person through the medium of
these mannerisms which may partly or purely involuntary. Steinback accurately describes
George’s echopraxia but deems it as indicative of his blind idolatry of George.
Drawing on the theories of causation
There is usually an effort by the author to account for the intellectual disabilities. This
aetiology varies widely depending perhaps most importantly the thrust of the narrative.
In Barnaby Rudge (1841), Dickens evokes the supernatural in describing the cause for
Barnaby’s ID in saying that “They recollected […] that when the son was born, he bore upon
his wrist what seemed a smear of blood but half washed out”. (Dickens,1998 reprint; p.41)]
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In contrast to this, Dickens has created a medically accurate portrait in the character of
Maggy in Little Dorrit. Traces of the encephalopathic origins of her ID are visible in her
dyspraxia and echolalic fragmented speech (Dickinson,2000). Dickens first introduces her as:
“[…] an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them[…] fell down,[…} ‘This is
Maggy, Sir’.
‘Maggy, Sir’ echoed the personage presented.
(Dickens,1996 reprint:p.97)
WHAT FUNCTION DOES THE DEPICTION SERVE?
The figure with ID has has seldom been depicted as an active agent with motives and
volition, even when central to the narrative.
They are often the butt of ridicule and casual cruelty. This careless cruelty may even come
from a caregiver as described poignantly in Of Mice and Men. Lennie’s friend and protector
George brags about Lennie’s devotion to him in saying:
“Why he’d do any damn thing I tol’ him to. […] one day a bunch of guys was standin’
around up on the Sacramento River I turns to Lennie and says ‘Jump in’. An’ he jumps in […]
couldn’t swim a stroke. (Steinbeck, 2000:p.41)
The association of ID and violence is so prevalent that persons with intellectual disabilities
are often invested with a sinister aura without really having to do anything.
In her description of the intellectually disabled Boo Radley, Harper Lee (1960) uses the voice
of the child narrator Scout to spell out this recognized stereotype:
“Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom […] people said he went out at night when
the moon was high and peeped in windows. When people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap, it
was because he had breathed on them. (Lee, 1997 reprint; p.9)
Use of character with ID as a narrative device
In essence writers employ figures with ID as a passive narrative device, where they function
as contrasts to the other characters.
Barnaby’s innocence is a foil to the rioters’ rage and complex political motives. Boo Radley is
a foil to another marginalized group in the story: the Blacks in the American South.
When used as a counterpoint, they become avolitional receptacles of various abstract
qualities that the author ascribes to them. These symbolic qualities assume centre stage and
displace the human figures.
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What do the characters with ID symbolize?
Lennie and Barnaby both represent a lyrical innocence, untouched by worldly reason.
This is reflected in Barnaby’s return to his idyllic rural home:
“He lived with his mother on the farm Never was there […] a creature more popular with
the young or old, a blither or more happy soul than Barnaby.”(Dickens, 1998 reprint: p.634)
This symbolism is inverted in highlighting their cruelty or sexual disinhibition. They then
come to represent dysregulation and destruction unchecked by reason.
In the Sound and Fury, Benjy a person becomes a metonymy for the “moral decay of the
Compson family “(Halliwell, 2004: p.20).
These symbolisms derive their power in being used subliminally. They perpetuate unspoken
stereotypes about ID. In doing so, they serve to minimize the identity of the intellectually
disabled persons as ordinary individuals and undermine their lived experience.
The character with ID becomes a silent Rorschach inkblot onto which society projects their
devices and desires through the agency of the author.
What would constitute an “ethical” representation?
The issue of ethical representation of disabilities has been discussed at length by Thomas
Couser (2005).
He does not advocate “positive” image of persons with disability “overcoming” impairments.
He suggests instead reasonable precautions that may be exercised in describing them. He
suggests consultations with individuals where possible: “nothing about us without us”.
(Charlton, 1998)
In the absence of the individual voice, he recommends that the authors consult advocacy or
support groups to minimize the possible harm by the representation, to ensure that they are
depicted as “different” but not “alien”, to avoid symbolisms that generates set stereotyped
images and to avoid moral attributions to what can be seen as part medical (impairment),
part social (disability) condition.
Conclusion
Fictional images significantly influence how persons with ID are viewed by society.
Knowledge of fictional images enhances the clinicians’ understanding of individual lives. And
prove to be valuable tool for reasoned and informed advocacy when clinicians speak for or
about persons with ID.
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