dis/lit 21

Room (?) Discussion

Karlie, Alaina, Daniella, and Nathalie

Karlie: It’s a fast read for me, the chapters are short, and the characters are interesting for me.

Alania: I want to crawl through the book and protect Mia.

Karlie: I got so pissed at that chapter with Mia.

Alania: I understand some healthcare facilities are not the best but that is just not okay.

Karlie: I think he is going to get caught.

Alania: How old is Mia again?

Karlie: I think she is seventeen.

Alaina: Then she is still a minor – If he was an adult he could get into real trouble and get locked up.

Karlie: Well I mean Jerry is way older than what I thought.

Foss: Jerry is one of the workers.

Karlie: Yeah, that scene left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Alania: Yeah, and I feel bad for teddy since he has no clue what’s going on.

Karlie: It’s sad that she is going through something so traumatic, and she hasn’t told anyone so no one can help her.

Alaina: – (I missed it. I’m sorry!!!)

Karlie: that scene in the book when he takes the bungee cord and spins her around is so sweet and cute.

Alania: Yeah, it is.

-I missed a little-

Alania: And the way that they talked about the lawsuits really gives the impression that they don’t care.

Karlie: I think it’s interesting that the main guy tom is going away and having vacations while others are trying to figure out ways to solve problems and the financial issues with the center. It’s like the center is a blip on their spectrum which is a shame because they obviously need more help with things.

Karlie: I hope Mia gets her justice.

Alania: I know she’s a fictional character, but I hope this isn’t based on a real story. Either way they all have their own backstories. The trauma Mia is going through is definitely real.

Karlie: What are your thoughts on Michelle?

-cue silence-

Karlie: My thoughts alone I can’t tell if she’s a good person doing bad things or if she is just a bad person doing her job.

Alania: I think she might have moments where she is a good person but… she can have the right thoughts, but she just dopes them the wrong way.

Karlie: That is fair, but I don’t know. She’s a bit of a confusing character for me. She’s money hungry and her character is almost spiteful about things.

Alania: I see that. She just seems like such a flat character now. She neither good nor bad.

Karlie: She’s very one dimensional.

Alania: I did enjoy the moment when the title was mentioned in the dialog.

Karlie: Yeah, I love it when that happens in books and movies.

Nathalie was the scribe.

Room 2 Discussion

Jessie: This is the first book I’ve read that has this many characters that have a disability. I listen through an audiobook and the voices bring a new light to the characters that really connect to the emotion of the story.

Sonia: Yeah Mia’s story is really difficult to read, but the intersectionality of trauma and disability that is presented here is something important to see, especially with the POV writing, which really connects you to the characters.

Maddie: The representation of Disability and Romantic relationships is also something that is really important to see, instead of the hypersexualization that we viewed previously.

Emily: I wish that there were less narrators, but I feel really drawn to a few of them. The representation of some of these characters having an angry personality and opinion is different from disabled stereotypes that are presented.

Sonia: The representation is also totally valid, they give a healthy viewpoint of justified anger.

Jessie: I appreciate Ricky and Jimmie. Having it read to me assists with my own disability and allows me to follow their story. Giving the different perspectives gives a different view of the world the author has created. Joanne’s perspective vs the other disabled “kids” vs the parents (who are dealing with having to provide for these kids what the facility can’t) vs Michelle and how she is struggling with her role in the corporation. Getting to see all of those factors together is really rewarding. It’s super complex, and presented in a wonderful way.

I personally believe the story is centered around Joanna and the way that the surrounding characters are going to help her improve the facility.

Sonia: The multiple narrators has to be done right, and I think that this author does. The speaking styles change for each character. They are all unique and it works really well, demonstrating their personality through narration styles.

Jessie: I agree, some books have really flat characters that don’t develop or change, but this novel is able to change and demonstrate development and gives you an image that you can see.

Maddie: I do think sometimes though, characters don’t change for reasons and teach intentional lessons that not changing has consequences. In this book, the growth and change are intentionally placed to see how trauma develops and shapes those with disabilities and also gives credit to representing those with disabilities as able to grow and change given resources and opportunity.

Emily: That’s why I think that the character selection here is also important, otherwise it could very much be a conversation about “poor disabled kids and the good adults who take care of them”

Sonia: There also a huge capital lens through Michelle’s character, which makes you doubt her intentions.

Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on Tulips by Sylvia Plath

So I think by now it’s certainly becoming apparent to my classmates that I am a massive poetry fan, as the poems we read are usually the reading that I share my thoughts on each day. I think my fascination with poetry coms from the various ways that the poem format allows authors to convey how they are feeling and their thoughts in a vast variety of ways. So allow me preface this by saying I know it’s no surprise, but the reading I chose to talk about today was Tulips by Sylvia Plath, because it’s a beautiful poem.

Readers are immediately introduced to the speaker, who is explaining her experience with getting some type of surgical procedure done. However, the true beauty of this poem lies not in the way that the speaker describes the events of the surgery, but in the way that Plath plays with tension and contrast and how they relate to the speakers feelings throughout her experience. The speaker, throughout the poem describes the hospital room she is in as “white,” “peaceful,” and says that in a room full of nurses, “nobody watched” her. She describes wanting to not stand out in this room and instead wanting to “to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.” Her description of the room combined with how she describes her emotions in the state, portrays to readers that our speaker longs for the release of death. However, Plath introduces tension into the poem when she reveals the existence of the tulips. Contrasting with the calm whiteness of the hospital room, the the speaker describes how the tulips not only scream bright red, but also demand her attention while she is merely trying to embrace death. The speaker explains how the tulips go so far as to almost anger her, as they interrupt her calmness “like a loud noise” and are calling to her and demanding that she hold onto reality rather than let go, allowing Plath to create the tension of life versus death in the poem. This is of course further evident by the color choice in the poem, as white is oftentimes associated with the heavenly afterlife and red is usually associated with the color of blood and of life. By doing this, Plath presents readers with the question of will our speaker choose to accept death and embrace it with open arms, or will she take on the challenge of the tulips and take on life once again. While readers are never given a direct answer as to what happens with our speaker, Plath decides to end her poem with the woman describing how these previously “white,” calm walls “seem to be warming themselves.” I would argue that this line of the last stanza insinuates that our speaker does in fact choose to hold on to life rather than to embrace death, as red is considered a very warm color so to have these white walls begin to warm up, almost as if they are turning as red as the tulips, leaves readers to believe that the woman decided to give life another chance.

I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on the poem if I missed anything or if you interpreted it a different way so feel free to drop a comment!

STRUCTURE OF GOOD KINGS BAD KINGS

Hi everyone. I was wondering what was everyone’s opinion on the structure/layout of this story? I read another story in a previous english class called “There There” by Tommy Orange which featured a similar layout in the sense that each chapter was told from the perspective of someone new and which is something I had not come across before. To my surprise I actually loved this style of writing because not only does it somehow make reading the text less overwhelming for me, but I really enjoy the change of narration because it gives us an opportunity to view events from way more points of view than we would receive from only one narrator or if the story was told in one point of view. Is anyone having similar experiences or perhaps disagree with me and would prefer the stability of sticking to one person’s perspective?

Katie Blair’s response to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper is a story about a woman who’s described by her husband as having “nervous depression.” Although the main focus of the story is the woman’s fixation with the yellow wallpaper, the aspect that interested me the most was her husband’s belief that she wasn’t sick. This reflects the issue that many people still believe mental disabilities don’t exist, or just don’t take the time to understand how intense they can be. The woman describes her husband as “practical in the extreme” and that he “he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.” Many doctors are stereotyped as being more factual than theoretical, and this is definitely seen through the husband. However, I want to focus on their husband-and-wife relationship as well, rather than just the doctor-patient one.

With the presence of mental disabilities in a family, the recognition and response from the family is an important factor in the person with the mental disability’s life. Unfortunately, mental disabilities such as depression and nervousness are still neglected by many people. While the issue of mental disability awareness is growing tremendously, there is still a lot of work to be done; The Yellow Wallpaper does a great job of portraying this issue. Along with the wife’s husband’s belief that her sickness isn’t real, his opinions are also seen through his treatment choices. It seems as though he wants to hide her away from everyone, as if he was ashamed of her mental disability, by bringing her to the country estate house to “rest” for the summer. Especially since the woman says herself that she personally disagrees with that form of treatment and that “more excitement and change would do [her] good,” it is clear that the husband ignores her input, possibly to hide her mental disability from others. Also, the husband’s lack of understanding is evident since he discourages the things that make the woman happy, such as writing. Although the husband remains loving and caring towards his wife during the whole story, his lack of understanding for her mental disability is apparent through his stubborn treatment, causing more pain for his wife.

It is impossible for someone to make judgements about those with a disability that they don’t have themselves, yet this is exactly what the husband does. One line that particularly stood out to me was when she said her husband told her, “no one but [herself] can help [her] out of it, that [she] must use [her] will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with [her].” This line angered me tremendously because it is basically like telling someone with depression ‘not to be sad’, which is insensitive and arrogant to assume that overcoming an illness such as depression is a ‘simple’ task to do. These misconceptions about how impactful mental illnesses can be in people’s lives is a problem that needs to be fixed because it is why so many people with mental illnesses don’t get the help that they need. If the husband would’ve listened to his wife’s needs and didn’t hide her away in a room for a full summer, she might have been able to get her mental disability under control, however his decisions ultimately made it worse for he in the end. At the end of the story, it is even more clear that the husband chose to ignore the state of his wife’s condition because he was so shocked to see how intense her mental illness had grown that he fainted.

Overall, The Yellow Wallpaper is a great example of the issue of people not understanding mental disabilities and how they affect those who have them.

Word Count: 623

A Poem for Easter

With Easter coming up I thought I’d share this poem by Vassar Miller, a poet who lived with cerebral palsy. Some observations/my favorite aspects of the poem-you can really hear that “lift” in line 2 when you read it aloud, you kind of have to yank it up with your voice to make the rhyme work. And the rhyme scheme (ABBA ABBA) really enhances the theme, recalling Christ’s cry on the cross (Abba, Abba/Eloi, Eloi). Also, if there are any Sufjan Stevens fans out there, I suspect this poem might’ve inspired some lines in John My Beloved, but I’m not sure there’s any evidence for that. Hope you guys enjoy and Happy Holidays

The New Icarus

Slip off the husk of gravity to lie
Bedded with wind; float on a whimsy, lift
Upon a wish: your bow’s own arrow, rift
Newton’s decorum—only then you fly.
But naked. No false-feathered fool, you try
Dalliance with the heights, nor, plumed with metal, shift
And shear the clouds, imperilling lark and swift
And all bridal-bowered in the sky.

Your wreck of bone, barred their delight’s dominions,
Lacking their formula for flight, holds imaged
Those alps of air no eagle’s wing can quell.
With arms flung crosswise, pinioned to wooden pinions,
You, in one motion plucked and crimson-plumaged,
Outsoar all Heaven, plummeting all Hell.

March 20: Break out room

Didn’t feel like anything new other then the historic stuff
We liked the ADA information
Since it is being repeated it sucks that things are seen everywhere
- The over sexualization of disabled people or telling that they are asexual
We like the part about “how would the government define disability? How could they?”
Ana didn’t want to claim disability if it was temporary of invisible because it doesn’t affect her as much
Companies would take people to court because of the ADA because of their invisible disabilities
Disabilities can be temporary
The idea of comparing people with disabilities to children isn’t the way to do it they are human too
- Having to be in private to be able to have sex is something that is harmful
- This relates back to the thought of people that have disabilities are seen as asexual because of the idea that they are “unwanted, or childish in nature” which relates back to the forced child mindset
- They are adults they should be able to have sex in their own way with their wants
- It shouldn’t be our business
The idea of consent may be skewed due to the fact people want to interfere because they don’t think they can consent
- It almost seems compulsory because of the fact they were “always together” or “always touching” they just didn’t want to be separated

Please excuse grammar or spelling mistakes typing fast doesn’t always make things make sense lol

Daniella’s Response to Susan Nussbaum’s “Good Kings & Bad Kings”

When it comes to the contents of Good King & Bad Kings, I didn’t have much prior knowledge as to what I was getting into. Even as a person who’s read quite a varied amount of literature, I’ve never actually read that many books where disability has been a major focus. From the kinds I’ve read, I consider them to be light in nature compared to the contents of Nussbaum’s novel though, far from it in actuality. Good Kings & Bad Kings is a far more realistic approach to disability, and pulls no punches in letting you know what you’re getting into.

Nussbaum manages to craft a so far realistic portrayal of the modern world, and tackles disability in a way that slowly begins to unravel a darker portrait of the character’s situations. There’s a pretty varied cast of characters, all with differing challenges, whether it be mentally, physically, or both. They’re not exactly defined by it either, something that not only happens in different forms of media, but something that we as a society seem to generalize as well. Each character has a distinct personality that makes them stand out, which is quite good given the book’s extensive cast of characters; and it’s not just that either, all the characters are where they are for different reasons, and although we don’t know every detail given how early we are into the novel, the way characters act and are treated not only make them distinct as said earlier, but gives us details that allow these characters to feel human.

For example, the character of Yessenia is the first character we’re introduced to. From her point of view, she tells us that she is physically challenged, however, Yessenia flips expectations on the head through her abrasive personality. While I wouldn’t consider her to be a morally bad character, it’s clear that she considers herself to be quite independent. Because her aunt was a large figure in her life, she’d gain much influence from her, especially when it came to standing her own ground, which in turn resulted in her being sent to the ILLC to begin with. The characters themselves may experience disability, but there’s more to them being where they currently are then simply their own ailments; and in turn, that rawness is what makes these characters so captivating this early on. It’s clear that we’ll learn more about them as the events move forward, but establishing these people as their own is key in any story, and is especially good given the subject matter being discussed. The characters aren’t portrayed to be perfect either, having noticeable flaws as I discussed earlier with Yessenia’s introduction. It could be argued that making these characters flawed could digress this sort of representation, but that’s far from the case here. If anything, having characters of certain archetypes constantly portrayed in a set way only limits the means of how diverse representation itself can be, and here, Nussbaum takes these niche ideas and drives forward with them, not only giving the reader something refreshing, but as someone who has mental disabilities themselves, it’s nice seeing something so raw in it’s message that’s willing to take these steps without trying to pander to the kind of disabled stories that we’re normally so used to seeing.

Word Count – 548

Eliana’s Response to Susan Nussbaum’s “Good Kings Bad Kings”

In Susan Nussbaum’s Good Kings Bad Kings, the audience is refreshed with a completely honest and raw take on not only the mindset of people with disabilities, but also those who are associated. Instead of repeating one person point of view with the plot of epic overcomings, Nussbaum offers multiple character’s points of view that allow for a much more diverse and stimulating piece of literature.

In relation to the other works for class, Good Kings Bad Kings seems to be not only one of the most diverse and powerful narratives from this class, but also from all I’ve read. Usually with diversity literature, there are often either the sole token diverse characters or a character with a disability/illness that is severely misrepresented. Fiction with minimally acceptable or even outstanding presence of diversity is rare, but Nussbaum is able to incorporate it as a part of each character. She does so in a way that their said ‘difference’ is just a trait, without making the character’s personality solely revolve around their diversity factor.

These practices can be seen in every character we have been introduced to so far, and cannot easily be labeled as inherently good or bad people, just human with flaws. This is also illustrated by the change of viewpoints, where we are able to see into the mind of each character. My favorite character so far is Joanne, as I appreciate her self sufficiency alongside her anti sugar coating persona. She is able to form connections with the neurotypical staff, but also to the kids in the ILLC as a wheelchair user. Her viewpoint and personal experiences are able to bring attention to the injustices that the kids are facing that staff weren’t able to realize. Nussbaum’s authentic perspective is displayed easiest in Joanne’s character also, with her satire and complete honesty. As seen in quotes like “And that’s the inspirational true story of how I overcame my disability and became a contributing member of society.” where she challenges the cliche norms.

In addition to narratives on ILLC patients like Yessina and Teddy and a disabled caretaker like Joanne, another interesting character is Michelle. Here I feel is where the outlook on humanity is displayed the strongest of a mix of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Nussbaum intentionally creates first person viewpoints on characters that would be deemed as antagonistic from a singular perspective. She’s incredibly monetarily motivated and it disconnects her from stronger morals. Although she works in the healthcare system with disabled patients, it’s evident she has significant ignorance regarding their lives and disabilities. Displayed how she genuinely thinks the system is the best it can get for a disabled person, and seeing it as humanitarian work. Regardless of affiliation in her career, her primary focus is money and possesses a sort of savior complex encouraging disabled stereotypes. Her interaction with a patient in her chapter reinstates her unfamiliarity, saying that a girl with schizophrenia didn’t look the part by seeming too lucid and controlled. While commissioning she states, “the work I do is important because I’m getting people off the streets and into warm beds with three meals a day and medical care.”

It’s important to have representation that accurately depicts a community. False representation or misunderstanding can do more harm than good and continue to feed the stereotype surrounding it, instead of showing an authentic approach. Nussbaum is able to effectively deliver an inclusive and down to earth story about diversity, disability, and typical successes and struggles of life. Instead of feeding into savior complex troupes to ‘save’ the disabled or delivering the inspirational achievement story due to a disability, she gives her readers a refreshing and genuine work of realistic fiction that represents diversity and disabilities alike.

Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on Beauty and Variations by Kenny Fries

Usually when it comes to our biweekly discussions, I tend to try to talk about at least two of the assigned readings for whatever day it is. However, this week for Tuesday, one of the readings we were asked to check out was Beauty and Variations by Kenny Fries, and quite frankly, it stood out to me so much that I actually just wanted to share my thoughts on this reading alone today.

With the poem Beauty and Variations, author Kenny Fries portrays to readers how the societal standards for beauty can affect someone with a disability. Specifically, we as readers are introduced to a speaker that has an unspecified physical disability that is struggling with recognizing their own self beauty. This is realized in the very first line of the poem, when the speaker asks “what is it like to be so beautiful?” The speaker is admiring their lover and recognizing their physical beauty but through this, failing to see how their own body can match that of their significant others and be considered beautiful. This is echoed by the way the speaker describes their lover’s body as having “sculpted thighs” and “smooth skin” but then aggressively contrasts this to his or her own body by describing it as “twisted,” “deformed,” and filled with “wounds” and “scars.” This ferocious comparison highlights how disabled individuals, while being beautiful people, oftentimes fail to see that due to the negative connotations that society associates with disabled individuals.

What perhaps pushes the poem to an even more emotional level, is the fact that in an attempt to simply get someone to understand how they are feeling in the present moment, the speaker actually wishes harm against their significant other. While it is not out of ill intent, the speaker tells their lover that they want to “break your bones.” However, the speaker immediately follows this up by saying that they wish to do this so that their legs “look like mine.” The choice to follow up an aggressive thought with one of innocence not only parallels the message of the poem, but also shows, on a deeper, more intimate level, how an individual with a disability might be feeling in these situations. We as readers must assume that societal beauty expectations are made to feel so important in our lives that the speaker wants to do harm on their lover only to make them understand how they feel.

While this is barely scratching the surface of the poem by Fries, it is also a glimpse at the depth and layers that included within it and i would love to hear what other readers thought of the reading and how they perceived the poem and what they got form it.