In Kenny Fries’ poem “Beauty and Variations”, there is an open discussion of beauty in relation to the human body as well as a disabled body. As the title suggests, the poem describes two lovers exploring the nature of physical beauty between one another. From the start, the tone of the poem is one of pure wonder and sensuality as the narrator compares their body to their lover’s. The word ‘beauty’ is thrown around quite a bit as the poem explores the deeper meaning to it. The narrator expresses the desire to discover if beauty is equally easy to find inside as it is outside. One particular line points to the main question in the text, “What is beautiful? Who decides? Can the laws of nature be defied?” (Fries). The narrator struggles with their physical image compared to their lover’s, who is beautiful from birth. While exploring their physical beauty as they continue to love and touch the narrator, the narrator wonders at how this interaction has come about. In the narrator’s mind, beauty can not consist of twisted limbs and missing bones. But in the lover’s mind, these aspects do not change their affections. They can touch and kiss and love like any couple would, but the question lingers in the narrator’s mind even as they are intimate together. While the open discussion of beauty between them takes place mainly within the narrator’s thoughts, there is a certain demonstration of the value of beauty occurring between them. It is clear the narrator believes physical appearance holds a lot of power in the defining of beauty in society. Furthermore, the narrator believes that the crooked body that makes up their anatomy is not worth as much as the natural beauty their partner possesses. The narrator goes as far as stating that they believe their flaws will cause physical harm to their lover, “My hands would leave you scarred. Knead the muscles of your thighs” (Fries). This is a good example of equating disability with pain. Assuming that someone with a disability can only cause or feel pain to a certain degree is a misconception that Fries explores with this open discussion. Another significant feature of the poem is its sensuality. Too often, those with disabilities are associated with a life lacking in sexual or otherwise physical activities. Another misconception that is exposed and is further denied by this Fries poem. The narrator and his lover are active in more ways than one in this poem, exploring their physicality and mentalities with one another. Sensuality takes one more than one meaning in this poem. The narrator’s thoughts are lined with the sensuality they feel with their partner, combined with the sensuality of being intimate with someone who is unlike them physically. Kenny Fries combats the negative notion of the disabled community being incapable or without sexual interactions, as well as further open up the discussion of sensuality between disabled and non-disabled partners. All around, this poem raises awareness to the interactions that the disabled community may have as well as how it relates to today’s standard beauty norms.
Breakout Group
Lanie Taylor (Note taker), Karlie Jahn, Faith Hopkins, Arden Jones
Arden noticed a theme throughout the readings in how disability is sexualized
Faith: Talks about how people thought disabled people would be better off dead
Faith: Talks about the image from the stories, how the way we put in the narrative to support the healthiness of the main character with the disabled friend.
Arden: Disabled characters are there to uplift the nondisabled character
Faith: Disabled people are there to teach the main characters to enjoy life and that it is not fair because disabled people can enjoy life
Faith: disability as a prosthesis, used as a crutch to perceive normalcy.
Karlie: It is the idea of the main character having the cynical view and when seeing the disabled character, they have a positive change of heart
Arden: Feels that disabled people should be the ones to represent disability, but it could potentially damaging
Faith: Most shows and movies only focus on the struggle of the disability, not the positive aspects
Arden: says that disability is apart of someone, but it should not be the only thing that the show focuses on
Faith: Deaf people almost lost their way of communication by almost being banned from using sign language
Gay people were also considered to be disabled
Small Group Notes 3/25
Danielle, Lily (note taker), Shane, Nathalie, Nicholas
Nicholas- On page four when sign language is mentioned but there is no mention of why this was detrimental to use in terms of the deaf community and was a bit shocking to read- the rational behind this thinking would be interesting to read more about
Lily- There are so many variations within the deaf community in terms of what is preferred or how people chose to be involved so it was interesting reading this point of view especially since everyone has such a different perspective
Nicholas- Can anyone think of any more current acts of xenophobia that are rooted in the fear or suspicious fear of spread of illness?
Nathalie- Recently there is certainly an outbreak of xenophobia towards Asians and Asian Americans in response to Covid-19 and is unfortunately the reasoning behind a great deal of violence and discrimination within our own country
Shane- Part of the “fear” towards immigration is the sheer cost of the situation, with the amount of immigrants that are moving into any given society those with xenophobic ideas are more worried about possible crime outbreaks and the toll it will take on the society with the introduction of more individuals
Lily- There is no doubt that many of the so called “fears” are rooted deeply in racism and xenophobia where people are just grasping at straws for reasons they can bring to the table in order to keep immigrants out of our society, which is disgusting in it of itself that these individuals are discriminated against so harshly and looked down upon based solely on their immigration status
Shane- The term “otherness” can be described in categories as small as accents, different clothing styles or mannerisms…
Dr. Foss- Even their taste in music
Shane- I think it may even be harder for immigrants to find a sense of community in a new place when they are leaving all that they know and everything they are familiar with behind in order to start a new life in a new area
Thoughts on “Old Questions”
This poem is one of my favorite pieces we have read in this class. The feeling of emptiness throughout the poem, with the speaker halfway responding to the italicized thoughts, essentially creating a representation of staring of into space while someone else is talking.
The last line with “She has found the back of his knees,” is so shocking. The emptiness that has carried through the poem, and her attention to what is going on in other rooms shoes the wanting to be normalized. She doesn’t want to be recognized for her disability, but wants to be able to just be a girl in another room.
Elena’s Response to “The Secret Garden” and “Defectives in the Land”
While reading Baynton’s introduction to Defectives in the Land, I couldn’t help but draw connections between the role disability and race have played in the history of immigration and the portrayal of foreign countries and races in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. Throughout the book, India is demonized as both the home of uncivilized subhumans and as the cause of Mary’s chronic illness. In his introduction, Bayton points out the overlap between the perception of disabled people and people from “undesirable” races or ethnicities during immigration. In both cases, the group in question is viewed as fundamentally flawed and inferior (as Baynton would say, defective). Just as Mary, Archibald, and Colin are viewed as less than human in various ways due to their disabilities, India and its people are viewed in a similar way. In The Secret Garden, England and the moor are portrayed as inherently superior to India in their quality of life and quality of people. The idea that Mary and Colin’s health issues will be solved by England’s “fresh air” is consistently reinforced throughout the novel, strengthened through the comparison of India and the moor. Mary’s poor health in India and upon arrival in England is repeatedly blamed on the nature of Indian weather: she had been so sick and surly because “she had always been too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything.” This attribution ignores the many other factors that affected Mary’s life in India, such as a lack of parental care, and instead forces a causal relationship between her physical defectiveness and the cultural/racial defectiveness of India. As Baynton identifies in his essay, blood and heritage govern ideas of a person’s worth and where they belong, be it on the moors for the white Mary or in India for her native servants.
The views of India as an inferior country and native Indians as an inferior race are held by the adults and then passed onto children as fact, which often serves to intensify the opinions. This cycle is illustrated clearly in the first interaction between Mary and Martha. When Mary says her life was different in India, Martha replies, “I dare say it’s because there’s such a lot o’ blacks there instead respectable white people.” She then admits she thought Mary would be black (meaning Indian), which Mary takes as a horrible insult. She describes her native servants as “obsequious and servile,” saying they “did not presume to talk to their masters as if they were their equals.” She even goes so far as to say “they are not people.” Although Martha goes on to say she has “nothin’ against th’ blacks,” she still dehumanizes them in similar ways to disabled people in a freak show. She talks about how she had “never seen a black an’ was fair pleased to think [she] was goin’ to see one close,” describing creeping up on Mary while she was asleep in an attempt to look at her unhindered. This treatment is reminiscent of the story Colin tells from his childhood in which a stranger comes up to him and pats his cheek out of sympathy when she learns of his disability. In both cases, the bodily autonomy of those deemed defective is ignored in order to allow the dominant group to use their body for entertainment. This is an example of the overlap between experiences of race-based and disability-based discrimination Baynton mentions in his work, which really centers around the dehumanization of those that the dominant groups view as defective.
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on some of the readings for 3/25/2021
Some readings that really stuck out to me for today were Douglas C. Baynton’s “Introduction” from Defectives In The Land and Jillian Weise’s “The Old Questions.”
With his introduction, Baynton touches on and introduces evidence of the negative connotations and stigmatizations associated with society and its views on individuals with disabilities and how they are present in the medical field during the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One piece of this evidence provided to readers is a medical certificate issued to one Delphi, that states “I hereby certify at Delphi, age 23 years, native of India, who arrived this day per S.S. Pennland is a mute and freak and unable to take care of himself.” Following immediately behind this, a second medical certificate is shown to readers. This one being issued to someone by the name of Jugernaut, states that “I hereby certify that Jugernaut, age 16 years, who arrived this day per S.S. Pennland, has loss of arms and legs. He is unable to care for himself.” These word choices and claims that are used by the medical professionals are not only shocking, but they show that the discrimination and negative views of disabled individuals reached all corners at the time. While of course or society has grown past using such words to describe an individual with a disability, Baynton’s piece paints an interesting picture that we can use as a mirror to hold up to our own modern society and see where we not only have improved but where we also have fallen short.
With her poem “The Old Questions”, author Jillian Weise sheds light on how people’s questions can come off as insensitive and be a lot emotionally for her. One such example that Weise provides is when she states “do you sleep with it on? I forgot / there would be this conversation.” Here, Weise not only gives an example of the types of questions she is often times asked, but also provides her response, showing how not only caught off guard she was, but also how she herself doesn’t see her disability as making her different than anyone else, its only the people asking the questions that see her as different. Weise follows this up with “do you bathe with it on? / I need to rehearse answers to these questions.” With this example, Weise is echoing just how often she is asked these invasive questions. In fact, she states that it happens so many times that she should just start to rehearse responses to them. These examples by Weise provide commentary on how we as a society oftentimes ask disabled individuals insensitive questions without even considering how they make the individuals feel. Begging us not only to ask ourselves if we have ever done this, but to also encourage ourselves to not do so anymore if we have.
If anyone has any thoughts on the readings I mentioned above, or even if they want to discuss some of the other readings that we had assigned for today, I would love to hear other people’s thoughts.
Zachary Welsh’s Response to Laura Hershey’s Working Together
The poem Working Together by Laura Hershey not only fully embraces her disability and the lifestyle that is associated with it, but she also places it fully in the light for readers, demanding that this part of her life be known and recognized by society. What is perhaps very striking about this choice of direction by Hershey, is that it goes against the norm in the fact that a majority of authors and poets that do in fact have a disability tend to hide their disability from the reader or even leave it out of the text completely. However, Hershey argues this by not only reinforcing the belief that the ordinary, every day parts of her daily life should be recognized and discussed, but also that these every day activities are in fact the exact opposite of ordinary. Hershey provides specific examples from the very get go, as in the opening lines of her poem, she describes the regular activity of brushing one’s teeth. However, Hershey expands upon how her disability affects the way she does this by breaking down the simple task into two jobs, one for her to do, and one for her caretaker to do. This is evident in the way that she states “her job: brisk bristle circle on teeth / my job: sneer / open wide.” Hershey immediately follows this up with another example of how her disability plays into how she gets ready in the morning. This time, introducing the idea of how her and her caretaker work together with her disability to get a bath, stating “her job: apply soap / loofa / hot spray / my job: how hot / say stop.” The third example that Hershey uses in her poem, is one of how she moves from one point to another when not in her wheelchair. Yet again, Hershey is discussing a simple task but she is placing on full display for her readers, how her disability plays into such a task. In this portion of her poem, Hershey states ” her job: heft my flesh / point a to point b / my job: remind her of our / respective spines and limbs.” Yet again, with this example Hershey also takes the idea of her dependent relationship as her caretaker, and displays it as a relationship of two coworkers working together to get something done. With these examples of her everyday routine of getting ready in the morning, Hershey, rather than attempting to hide her disability from her readers, is constantly reminding them and reinforcing within them, the knowledge that she does in fact have a disability. In the final portion of the poem, Hershey states “her job: what no one thinks of doing / except for self or child.” With this portion of the final stanza, Hershey portrays to readers that her disability actually does something one might not expect, it builds a relationship between two individuals, Hershey and her caretaker, and it allows them to bond. Hershey argues that through her disability, her caretaker has become closer to her in that she does these things for Hershey that one would typically only do for themselves or for their child. On top of this, Hershey argues that rather than hiding one’s disabilities or feeling negatively towards them, ones should embrace what makes them different and that by doing so they not only accept who they are, but it can also lead to them building good relationships with others.
Word count: 568
3/23/21 Breakout Room 2, Sec 02
Breakout Room 2 Notes: The Secret Garden
Salem: Mary is not a favorable character. She is not the most sympathetic- seems like a spoiled brat. Mary’s parents treated her like he was a burden.
Arden: Colin is led to believe that everyone around him wants him dead. Martha seems like a good person.
Faith: People with disabilities are being portrayed in such a way that they are compared to animals. Ex. Ben Weatherstaff. Lots of dehumanization in this text and past ones.
Haley/Faith: Mr. Craven thinks Colin is just like him and won’t want to live with a disability. Projection of his own issues onto his son can be seen all throughout the text.
Arden: Self-loathing is pervasive throughout the text.
Faith: Every person handles disability differently and a solution or coping mechanism that works for one person may feel like a hinderance to another.
Salem: The portrayal of disability in this book is problematic. There seems to be a theme of forcing disability onto one’s children due to internalized ableism. What are the authors intentions? Is it no longer ableist because there is a deeper meaning to it?
Haley: A caregiver can heavily influence a disabled person in their care’s sense of self and self-image. This can be seen in Colin’s case.
Arden: Mary’s outlook causes her to want to help Colin.
Salem: It’s reasonable that Colin’s caregivers get frustrated with his neediness and demands. He can be irrational at times.
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on Readings For 03/23/2021
A couple of the readings that really stood out to me for this Tuesday were Michael Davidson’s Universal Design: The Work of Disability in an Age of Globalization, and Laura Hershey’s Working Together. However, where I found myself wanting to share my thoughts on Hershey’s poem, I found that Davidson’s piece actually got me thinking about something that isn’t necessarily in the. text, but still relates to it. That being said, I would still like to share my thoughts that relate to Davidson’s piece, as they relate to our course as well.
In her poem Working Together, one thing I found myself not expecting was just how open and embracing author Laura Hershey was of her disability. I say this not because I think one’s disability is something to hide, but because many of the poems written by individuals that society would label as disabled tend to hide the disability of the author, presenting it in a negative light, or even leaving the disability out of the piece entirely. However, I feel that with this poem, Hershey is not only reinforcing. the idea that the ordinary parts of her life should be read about, but they are in fact the complete opposite of ordinary. In this poem specifically, Hershey tells readers what it is like for her to get ready in the morning. However, as opposed to the “ordinary” individual, Hershey presents readers with the understanding that she must have a caretaker help her with all of the things that abled individuals most likely take for granted. For example, Hershey mentions brushing her teeth, but then explains that her caretaker is the one who must “brisk bristle circle on teeth” while her job is to “sneer” and “open wide.” We see this idea of a dependent relationship between Hershey and her caretaker explored even more when Hershey talks about getting a bath in the mornings, as she states that her caretaker’s responsibility is to “apply soap,” “loofa,” and “hot spray,” while her job is to say “how hot” and when to “stop.” By presenting this relationship as one in which two people are working together, Hershey places emphasis on her disability and completely brings it to life without necessarily viewing it in a completely negative light. A fresh and brighter perspective for sure.
The next reading that really stuck out to me was Michael Davidson’s Universal Design: The Work of Disability in an Age of Globalization. The pice discusses films that include characters that are considered disabled such as La Petite Vendeuse De Soilel, and Dirty Pretty Things. However, reading these portions of the text got me thinking about other ways in which disabilities are represented in film. Specifically, it got me thinking about the the false messages associated with disabilities and how that correlates to film. One specific example that I could think of was the 2017 American film Wonder. The film focuses on the 10 year old boy August “Auggie” Pullman, who is born with mandibulofacial dysostkosis as he not only journeys through his first years in school, but also comes to terms with who he is. *Spoiler warning* As the film goes on, Auggie eventually comes to accept and embrace who he is, which of course is a huge step for him and a very important thing, but, at the end, he is awarded for this with the Henry Ward Beecher medal. While being an emotional and inspirational film for sure, Wonder arguably makes a mistake in its final act by having Auggie win the award, as it almost paints the picture that disabled individual who comes to accept themselves (if they are having trouble doing so) is to be celebrated and awarded for such an act. I would argue that it would have been better for Auggie to have lost the award to someone else, as it would have portrayed an even stronger message that it’s not the prize that makes him great, he was great from the very beginning.
Alaina’s Response to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden
I have grown up reading Burnette’s The Secret Garden and it is one of my favorite pieces to revisit whenever I can. For the longest time, I had viewed Colin’s illness as one that allowed those around him to spoil him. That his father’s fear of him developing a hunched back like his own was what started the journey that disabled Colin. Colin having several illnesses throughout childhood had further led everyone to believe that there was something truly wrong with him. That he would not live to adulthood, which was something that caused him to act like a spoiled brat who got whatever he desired. It was their own fears, as well as Colins, that was the main cause of his disability. The adults around Colin treated him as if he would break, that if they went against him he would end up exhausting himself to the point where he would pass away. Because Colin was unable to have a normal childhood, he turned into himself and saw any sort of flaw as the next sign of his impending death.
Mary was a girl who saw past the adult’s fear and Colin’s tantrum to see that he was perfectly normal. That the cause of his illness was his own and that he was a boy who was as spoiled as she was when she was in India. When she realized that he was as normal as she was, she and her friend Dickon came up with the idea that the garden would heal Colin, making him stronger than he was because of his preserved disability. The innocence of a child was able to see that Colin’s disability was something that can be ‘fixed’ by going outside and experiencing things that he had been previously kept from. Colin had been confined to laying down in order to prevent the hunched back, he was prevented from anything stressful or exciting in order to prevent him from going into a fit. The one time he did go out he read about an illness and immediately caught that illness, which makes me believe that Colin might be one to believe that he could get any sort of illness that he reads about. A hypochondriac. “…One time they took him out where the roses is by the fountain. He’d been readin’ in a paper about people gettin’ somethin’ he called ‘rose cold’ an’ he began to sneeze an’ said he’d got it an’ then a new gardener as didn’t know th’ rules passed by an’ looked at him curious. He threw himself into a passion an’ he said he’d looked at him because he was going to be a hunchback. He cried himself into a fever an’ was ill all night,” (Burnett)
He is so afraid of dying or not being able to live he continuously works himself up and becomes ill. Mary is what brings life to him. She shows him that she was like him, always ill and angry with the world. Mary becomes a savior, finding ways to bring life to Colin, standing up against his anger, and teaching him life is worth living no matter what is wrong. She uses the garden to make herself stronger and in turn Colin. She takes a place where there was a loss of life and turns it into a haven for the two of them. She is what brings life back into the garden and in turn the entire manor. Showing them that fear of disability is not something to worry about, that life is worth living.
Word Count = 604
