ENGL 1400 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Political Question, Maternalism
2 Nov 2020
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Thompson -- extraordinary bodies: how representation attaches meaning to bodies, the cultural self and the cultural other operate together as opposing twin gures, legitimate the social system. If disabled characters acted like real disabled people, they would try to mitigate their stigmatized status and the rhetorical power of the stigma would be lost: encounters between abled/disabled people irl differs from these characters in literature. 1: someone with a disability is instantly regarded and marked by the other person, disabled people all share the commonality of stigmatization, some people may try to stereotype and stigmatize others with different types. 2: freak shows embodied exceptionality as a marvel and as an anomaly, poses to the spectator the political question of how to interpret differences within an equal social order. Benevolent maternalism of the middle-class woman: display disabled people to mobilize and validate social reform.
