Document Type
Honors Project
Publication Date
5-31-2017
Abstract
Between 1830 and 1940, American fiction is populated by an increasing number of cognitively disabled characters. I explore the relationships between these cognitively disabled characters and the rapidly changing scientific and political environments in which they were created. Drawing on a variety of regionally specific primary sources, I analyze the influences of medical and social conceptions of cognitive disability on works of American fiction containing characters which fit historical labels for cognitive disability such as The Deerslayer, “Life in the Iron Mills,” the short stories of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, The Sound and the Fury, and Of Mice and Men. Scholarship on these works has neglected historical analysis of their intellectually disabled characters, flattening them into common and unchanging literary tropes. I argue that the way the authors represent these characters is not only dynamic but is also deeply influenced by changing American disability culture.
Level of Honors
magna cum laude
Department
English
Advisor
Melissa Range
Recommended Citation
Wallitsch, Lucy, "Fashioning a Feeble Mind: Cognitive Disability in American Fiction, 1830-1940" (2017). Lawrence University Honors Projects. 111.
https://lux.lawrence.edu/luhp/111
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons