Physical disabilities in American literature before 1815 were quite rare, as noted by some disability scholars such as Sari Altschuler. Often these early American novels and short stories focused on using simpler, allegorical characters to further political commentaries. 

Physical Disability in Early American Literature

Disability studies scholar Lennard Davis presents the idea that perhaps the mid 1800s saw an increase in the frequency of disabled characters in American literature due to a shift in cultural thought at the time. At the omphalos of this shift, Davis points to the introduction of the word "normal" as it is currently used as well as the industrial revolution and the boom in productivity-obsessed capitalism that came along with it. 

The Advent of Normalcy in the Novel and Disability

Lenard Davis introduces the idea that the very structure and conception of the novel as an artform promotes othering of disabilities and conceptions of normalcy and generalization as writers are prompted to create characters that are "average" or "relatable", characters that can function as a stand-in for the reader. 

The Structure of the Novel and Normalcy vs Disability

Between 1870 and 1970 when "unsightly beggar laws" began to restrict the movement and presence of visibly and mentally disabled persons in public, American novels saw a marked increase of disabled characters. Some scholars note that this was likely a form of fetishization fueled by curiosity due to the increased institutionalization at the time. 

Popularity of Disability in American Novels

Academic Henri-Jacques Stiker writes that the 1920s were a time of cultural shift in attitudes towards physical disabilities as many veterans returned to the US with missing limbs and other physical disabilities. The attitude became less about hiding away the disabled person and more about covering up their disability with a prosthetic. Novels and short stories of the time began to similarly cover up a character's disability by not depicting it directly but by showing it via unusual narrative flow or structure such as the narrative used in Faulkner's story Soldier's Pay.

The 1920s and Narrative Prosthesis

Physical disabilities are portrayed in literature somewhat frequently. In fact, physical disability is the most common type of disability portrayed in literature. It is also the most commonly studied depiction of disability in literature by humanities scholars. 

Claremont Graduate University

In the 1970s and 1980s, disability studies was predominantly headed by scholars and researchers employing a political and sociological focus. In the late 1980s and 1990s disability studies was popularized in the humanities and arts after being brought into the academic conversation by those in cultural studies. Around the 90s scholars therefore began looking to literature as a source of cultural commentary concerning disability and normalcy.

Disability Studies in the Arts and Humanities

Hall, A. (2016). Literature and disability (Ser. Literature and contemporary thought). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315726595

Literature and Disability


Once disability studies became a topic of discussion in the arts and humanities some scholars, such as Lennard Davis, began to question whether or not readers had considered certain authors, such as John Keats and John Milton, disabled. Some scholars support this as an appropriate way to identify and consider disability that others might have overlooked while others view this as a form of historical revisionism.


Disability Studies and the View of Authors


Some scholars looked for disabled characters in literature and attempt to analyze whether or not their disabilities are villainized or else seen as a punishment for immorality/ wrong-doing. This specific area of study is commonly referred to as the study of the literary “moral index”.


Moral Index of Disabled Characters


Scholar Lennard Davis looks at literature as a cultural expression  of major viewpoints and a vehicle by which the writer pushes major notions about productivity, morality, and way of being. This practice as a whole is named “enforcing normalcy”.


Enforcing Normalcy in Literature


Some scholars attempt to avoid generalizing the aims of literary works in their portrayals of normalcy and disability by acknowledging the nuanced space many works inhabit in creating an amalgamation of personal opinion, consideration of the audience, cultural and historical influence, etc. This more considered approach to analyzing literature with regard to culture, history, and disability is known as the “semiotics of culture”. 


The Semiotics of Culture


Many early scholars in the study of disability studies under the umbrella of the arts and humanities are commonly referred to as “first wave” disability scholars of the arts. These scholars are usually marked by their naming of new concepts and theories and some degree of generalizations. First wave disability scholars in the arts/ humanities are also marked by a general suspicion towards the way disabilities are used and portrayed in literature. 


First Wave Disability Studies Scholars in the Arts and Humanities

Physical Disability in Literature

Deafness is often a highly contested or difficult topic in the arts and humanities as some find work featuring deaf characters often centers oralist ways of being or presents oralist pedagogies. Even if the play/ novel/ media does not present oralist concepts, non-D/deaf persons often interpret the deafness as a metaphor. Despite these contentions, Deafness is still popular and common in the Arts & Humanities and Deaf Studies frequently discuss the arts.

Deafness in the Arts and Humanities

Blindness is fairly common in the Arts and Humanities and often is used to discuss topics or themes such as empathy, intimacy, and agency/ dependence. Often blindness is used by non-blind/ seeing writers/ creators to further conceptions of normalcy or discuss independence, particularly in Anglophone literature, though this is beginning to shift. 

Blindness in the Arts and Humanities

Writers have attempted to portray cognitive difference in the novel many times, typically by way of narration. One famous example is found in The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. The first section is narrated by a character many call "an idiot" and Faulkner himself called this a failure. This highlights one of many issues with writing from the perspective of those with cognitive difference- the difficulty or else impossibility of doing so when one is not cognitively different themselves.

Cognitive Difference and Narrative

Disability has been a longstanding tradition in literature and poetic verse. There is a strong tradition of employing disabled (and especially mute) female characters who communicate their message, truth, or trauma via unusual means and often these female characters represent creativity, truth, justice, or the spirit of poetic expression. Examples include the character of Philomela from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Lavinia from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. 

Disability in Poetry

Cheyne writes that genre fiction is primarily affective, building off of the same theories employed by Berlant. By their estimation, genre fiction (science fiction, horror, fantasy, etc.) functions with the assumption that the reader will experience specific emotions or reactions as embodiments of those emotions with narrative or thematic adjustments that are negligible in the ultimate face of the emotive experience itself. Similarly, Warhol said that overly evocative contemporary media, such as soap operas, are technologies of affect. For this reason, disability might commonly be employed for the ease with which it evokes an emotional response. 

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