Below you will find some of Christopher's scholarly work done as an undergrad studying English Literature. Work from this page may be used in other scholarly pursuits; if you're studying English Literature or anything in college and need to quote you will of course be citing this work in your paper using the MLA style. For those of you who want to plagiarize and not cite your sources, shame on you. For those individuals who want to steal this work, please be reminded it is copyrighted to the author and if you're caught you'll be in trouble. For those using this work for non-scholarly pursuits or for any other purpose (you may just find this information interesting and want to share it) please be sure to include the authors name and a link to this website so your friends know that I said it and not you. Thank you for your understanding and good luck in your studies, writing, career, or whatever it is you're up to at the moment!
Please note that these papers I have written are in no particular order. It's been quite a while since I've been in college and though I should probably be getting a Master's degree, I'm not for a lot of reasons. There are many ways for me to put these papers up but adding downloadable files offers me less control over my work and making multiple pages may get confusing after a while. I'll put a few up for now and keep a pulse on how many people are looking at this work. In time I'll probably figure out some sort of system to separate my work. In the meantime I hope what I have posted is what you need right now and it's easy enough for you to find!
Please note that these papers I have written are in no particular order. It's been quite a while since I've been in college and though I should probably be getting a Master's degree, I'm not for a lot of reasons. There are many ways for me to put these papers up but adding downloadable files offers me less control over my work and making multiple pages may get confusing after a while. I'll put a few up for now and keep a pulse on how many people are looking at this work. In time I'll probably figure out some sort of system to separate my work. In the meantime I hope what I have posted is what you need right now and it's easy enough for you to find!
A Brief Study of Gendered Space in Select Works by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, one of the masters of the English language, has multiple discourses on gender issues in many of his works. On a superficial level, these gender issues play themselves out in the dialogue between the characters, but on further inspection of the texts, there may be more to the use of gender as a motif than meets the eye. Shakespeare seems to have a tendency to reflect these gender issues in the settings in which his characters reside; one place is decidedly male while another place is decidedly female.
In Romeo and Juliet, there is a sense that the spaces in which the characters typically reside are purposefully gendered by Shakespeare. However, this is not the only play in which Shakespeare seems to have gendered space, or more precisely, given certain attributes that are typically perceived to be either male or female to a given place. Right from the start of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare seems to be laying down some ground rules for gendered space. Scene I is described as “a public Place”, and those characters he allows to enter this “public place” are males only. Though this place is not clearly identified, it is most likely a section of a street for Escalus, the Prince of Verona, states, “Three civil brawls, bred of airy word, by thee, Old Capulet and Montague, have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets” (Act I, Scene I, 1066). In order to fully understand this quote, one must be familiar with the back-story of Romeo and Juliet. The houses of Capulet and the Montague have been at odds with one another for generations upon generations, so long in fact that neither house really remembers why they dislike each other so. As such, they have claimed their “turf” and if either member of an opposing household should trespass on the others claimed zone, it would not be uncommon for a killing to take place. The streets are a dangerous place in this story, and Shakespeare has gendered them accordingly.
Shakespeare only allows the male characters to fully claim and occupy the streets and other public places of Verona, for it is a dangerous and unwieldy place. When out in these public places, the men are equipped with their usual paraphernalia that denote their masculine gender roles such as swords, bucklers, daggers, and the ilk. According to Shakespeare, men, and as such their typical gender roles such as physical strength and power, are the only ones who can survive in this environment. If the men are the dominate inhabitants of the public space, then women must be the dominant figures of the domestic space. In Renaissance times, of which Shakespeare is writing from, women were seen as the ones that, by God given right, were to tend to the household and maybe more importantly attend to their husbands will. It is interesting to note the structure of this gendered space in Romeo and Juliet because it may directly correlate to the Renaissance notion that women must be protected by men for they are too weak to fend for themselves. The public spaces which are delineated as male, surround the domestic spaces literally, which are designated as female.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream also seems to resonate with gendered space, though it does not fit the structure that “Rome and Juliet” was molded into. In this play, the space is a “here and there” structure, with the male and female spaces being separated from one another. The two places that this structure is formed around are the urban civilized areas and the realm of nature and the forests. In this way, the male place is that of the civilized word which is governed by rigid laws of which these laws are created, controlled, and executed by men. Therefore, the place of nature or the woods is the female area which is governed by few rules. Both of these places are spaces of extremes, and any one person living entirely in one or the other was subject to living life out of balance. Therefore, one must be able to travel between the two in order to be a balanced and healthy person. As such, the young lovers of the play retreat to the forest when the rules of the male dominated society begin to work against them. These young lovers leave the male dominated space in order to become clear about themselves and their lives. When this epiphany, as it were, occurs then the lovers will return back to the male dominated society changed and will adjusts themselves to fit accordingly into their roles as males and females.
I believe that Shakespeare is trying to argue that if any one person was too male he or she would be staunchly aggressive, wield far too much power or authority, and that excess would lead to social destruction. On the other hand, if one were to live entirely in the female space, the lack of laws, rules, and structure would also lead to social decay and chaos. But this theory also has a harkening back to the more obvious used of gendered space in Rome and Juliet. Individuals do not leave the female space and get a taste of the “other side” in the male space to return back to live their lives in harmony for this would reject the notion that men are the dominant forces in Renaissance society. To exemplify the harshness and rigidity of the male dominated society Theseus, the Duke of Athens, states “[My daughter] turned her obedience, which is due to me, to stubborn harshness…as she is mine I may dispose of her…according to our law” (MSND, Act I, Scene I, 168). The king would have his own daughter put to death if she does not consent to marry the man he has chosen for her simply because the law calls for it. This is obviously a man who is far too indebted to the male society and one may argue that he lives his life in this excess of the “male space”. This quote stems from Hermia, disobeying her father’s wishes to marry Demetrius. Hermia states, “I know not by what power I am made bold…but I beseech your grace that I may know the worst that may befall me in this case if I refuse to marry Demetrius” (MSND, Act I, Scene I, 168). The young lovers of the male sex seem to enter to forest in order to learn how to not live according to these utter regard to the laws, and the female characters, interestingly, enter this place to learn how to be subservient to men.
Another of Shakespeare’s plays that runs along the lines of this “here or there” structure is As You Like It. Like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this too is a play concerning four younger lovers who leave the rigid male-dominated society and enter the forest in order to bring clarity into their lives. Again the forest, or “green place”, seems to be designated as female as it is a place that is nourishing, soft, and comforting. Since the “court”, as it is called, is the male local it is a place that is rigid and dangerous and is ruled by laws that the young lovers are unable to cope with since love cannot be contained by laws. As such, lovers must flee a place that is free from such inflexible rules and this place is the female area of the forest. Here, without the violent court to admonish them for their emotions, they are able to finally be in an environment which facilitates the ability to “become clear” about one’s self; to be in a place that is free of distraction in order to think clearly and critically about one’s situation. The Duke says of the forest, “Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?” (Act II, Scene I, 257). In an almost transparent manner, Shakespeare has assigned gender roles to these different environments.
The Life and Death of King Richard II, one of Shakespeare’s history plays, seems to also gender space but in a far more different, and possibly radical, way than the other three plays discussed. This gendered space is also not as obvious, but this may be due to the fact that it is a play based on history and as such will not weigh itself down with the more moralistic approaches Shakespeare seems to have taken in some of this other works. The gendering of space in Richard II is quite subtle, but I feel that the court of Richard II is the place that is designated as female while the eventually acquired court of Bolingbroke his cousin is designated as male. This definition is not as concrete as the other two aforementioned because these courts, for this argument, don’t really occupy definitive or literal physical spaces, rather they occupy social spaces. That is to say these courts are not of the “here or there” structure of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (though there may be a vague connection), nor are they of the public- vs. domestic-space structure of Rome and Juliet. Rather, these male and female gendered spaces seem to occupy the human-constructed British royalty system which has a very physical location in Britain but is, at its core, nothing more than a human social construct. The vague connection between the “here and there” structure is evident when Richard II leaves Britain to wage war in Ireland, a land known for its green rolling hills, which may be equated to the “green place” or forest that is the feminine local in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Just like the young lovers enter the “green place” to find themselves and achieve clarity in their lives, so too does Richard seem to go to this “green place” and returns somehow changed and more aware of certain aspects of his life; that aspect he seems more aware of is his own mortality. Richard states, “Keeps death his court…and humor’d thus comes at the last, and with a little pin bores through his castle-wall, and – farewell king!” (Act III, Scene II, 445-46).
It also should be noted how the difference between the courts of Richard II and Bolingbroke also seem to carry traces of gender identity. The court of Richard II may be viewed as the feminine “space” while Bolingbroke, who eventually becomes King Henry IV, is the male counterpart. Richard’s court is small and frail and is governed by his notion that language has power, all of which may be deemed stereotypically female traits. Bolingbroke’s court, on the other hand, is governed by armies and force which are stereotypically male qualities. Each is both in some form of extreme though, where Richard II is indecisive and easily submissive, and Bolingbroke is perhaps too decisive and feels that all power stems from might. In the end, as is typical of Shakespeare’s moral about living a life in any extreme state, both are doomed to failure. We may come to understand this notion of Richard as dominating the female aspects of the play, and where Shakespeare genders the mental spaces of the play, when he states “My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul, my soul the father” (Act V, Scene V, 458). When Richard recites these lines, he is being held in prison which can be seen a male space for it is a place of confinement and cruelty and since Shakespeare always keeps a balance between male and female, Richard is the only character to balance out the “maleness” with “femaleness”. But all this transverses in a mental state, so not only does Shakespeare gender physical spaces, but mental landscapes as well.
As we can see, Shakespeare has almost defiantly gendered space in his writings, but what this essay does not cover fully is if this gendering of space was intentional or not. Even if Shakespeare did not intentionally make this distinction (if he did it would surely give him more credit as one of the world’s greatest writers), the effects are powerful and give great insight into the notion of gender to those of the Renaissance period. Modern critics, especially those of the feminist persuasion, may find these gendered spaces as testosterone driven and cruel to women. The fact that the female-typed spaces are domestic, indoors, and away from any “real world danger” may cause them grave concern, but these are simply the cultural relics of a time long since gone.
Works Cited:
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Ed. Walter J. Black, Inc.. New York: Ferris Printing Co., 1937.
In Romeo and Juliet, there is a sense that the spaces in which the characters typically reside are purposefully gendered by Shakespeare. However, this is not the only play in which Shakespeare seems to have gendered space, or more precisely, given certain attributes that are typically perceived to be either male or female to a given place. Right from the start of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare seems to be laying down some ground rules for gendered space. Scene I is described as “a public Place”, and those characters he allows to enter this “public place” are males only. Though this place is not clearly identified, it is most likely a section of a street for Escalus, the Prince of Verona, states, “Three civil brawls, bred of airy word, by thee, Old Capulet and Montague, have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets” (Act I, Scene I, 1066). In order to fully understand this quote, one must be familiar with the back-story of Romeo and Juliet. The houses of Capulet and the Montague have been at odds with one another for generations upon generations, so long in fact that neither house really remembers why they dislike each other so. As such, they have claimed their “turf” and if either member of an opposing household should trespass on the others claimed zone, it would not be uncommon for a killing to take place. The streets are a dangerous place in this story, and Shakespeare has gendered them accordingly.
Shakespeare only allows the male characters to fully claim and occupy the streets and other public places of Verona, for it is a dangerous and unwieldy place. When out in these public places, the men are equipped with their usual paraphernalia that denote their masculine gender roles such as swords, bucklers, daggers, and the ilk. According to Shakespeare, men, and as such their typical gender roles such as physical strength and power, are the only ones who can survive in this environment. If the men are the dominate inhabitants of the public space, then women must be the dominant figures of the domestic space. In Renaissance times, of which Shakespeare is writing from, women were seen as the ones that, by God given right, were to tend to the household and maybe more importantly attend to their husbands will. It is interesting to note the structure of this gendered space in Romeo and Juliet because it may directly correlate to the Renaissance notion that women must be protected by men for they are too weak to fend for themselves. The public spaces which are delineated as male, surround the domestic spaces literally, which are designated as female.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream also seems to resonate with gendered space, though it does not fit the structure that “Rome and Juliet” was molded into. In this play, the space is a “here and there” structure, with the male and female spaces being separated from one another. The two places that this structure is formed around are the urban civilized areas and the realm of nature and the forests. In this way, the male place is that of the civilized word which is governed by rigid laws of which these laws are created, controlled, and executed by men. Therefore, the place of nature or the woods is the female area which is governed by few rules. Both of these places are spaces of extremes, and any one person living entirely in one or the other was subject to living life out of balance. Therefore, one must be able to travel between the two in order to be a balanced and healthy person. As such, the young lovers of the play retreat to the forest when the rules of the male dominated society begin to work against them. These young lovers leave the male dominated space in order to become clear about themselves and their lives. When this epiphany, as it were, occurs then the lovers will return back to the male dominated society changed and will adjusts themselves to fit accordingly into their roles as males and females.
I believe that Shakespeare is trying to argue that if any one person was too male he or she would be staunchly aggressive, wield far too much power or authority, and that excess would lead to social destruction. On the other hand, if one were to live entirely in the female space, the lack of laws, rules, and structure would also lead to social decay and chaos. But this theory also has a harkening back to the more obvious used of gendered space in Rome and Juliet. Individuals do not leave the female space and get a taste of the “other side” in the male space to return back to live their lives in harmony for this would reject the notion that men are the dominant forces in Renaissance society. To exemplify the harshness and rigidity of the male dominated society Theseus, the Duke of Athens, states “[My daughter] turned her obedience, which is due to me, to stubborn harshness…as she is mine I may dispose of her…according to our law” (MSND, Act I, Scene I, 168). The king would have his own daughter put to death if she does not consent to marry the man he has chosen for her simply because the law calls for it. This is obviously a man who is far too indebted to the male society and one may argue that he lives his life in this excess of the “male space”. This quote stems from Hermia, disobeying her father’s wishes to marry Demetrius. Hermia states, “I know not by what power I am made bold…but I beseech your grace that I may know the worst that may befall me in this case if I refuse to marry Demetrius” (MSND, Act I, Scene I, 168). The young lovers of the male sex seem to enter to forest in order to learn how to not live according to these utter regard to the laws, and the female characters, interestingly, enter this place to learn how to be subservient to men.
Another of Shakespeare’s plays that runs along the lines of this “here or there” structure is As You Like It. Like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this too is a play concerning four younger lovers who leave the rigid male-dominated society and enter the forest in order to bring clarity into their lives. Again the forest, or “green place”, seems to be designated as female as it is a place that is nourishing, soft, and comforting. Since the “court”, as it is called, is the male local it is a place that is rigid and dangerous and is ruled by laws that the young lovers are unable to cope with since love cannot be contained by laws. As such, lovers must flee a place that is free from such inflexible rules and this place is the female area of the forest. Here, without the violent court to admonish them for their emotions, they are able to finally be in an environment which facilitates the ability to “become clear” about one’s self; to be in a place that is free of distraction in order to think clearly and critically about one’s situation. The Duke says of the forest, “Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?” (Act II, Scene I, 257). In an almost transparent manner, Shakespeare has assigned gender roles to these different environments.
The Life and Death of King Richard II, one of Shakespeare’s history plays, seems to also gender space but in a far more different, and possibly radical, way than the other three plays discussed. This gendered space is also not as obvious, but this may be due to the fact that it is a play based on history and as such will not weigh itself down with the more moralistic approaches Shakespeare seems to have taken in some of this other works. The gendering of space in Richard II is quite subtle, but I feel that the court of Richard II is the place that is designated as female while the eventually acquired court of Bolingbroke his cousin is designated as male. This definition is not as concrete as the other two aforementioned because these courts, for this argument, don’t really occupy definitive or literal physical spaces, rather they occupy social spaces. That is to say these courts are not of the “here or there” structure of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (though there may be a vague connection), nor are they of the public- vs. domestic-space structure of Rome and Juliet. Rather, these male and female gendered spaces seem to occupy the human-constructed British royalty system which has a very physical location in Britain but is, at its core, nothing more than a human social construct. The vague connection between the “here and there” structure is evident when Richard II leaves Britain to wage war in Ireland, a land known for its green rolling hills, which may be equated to the “green place” or forest that is the feminine local in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Just like the young lovers enter the “green place” to find themselves and achieve clarity in their lives, so too does Richard seem to go to this “green place” and returns somehow changed and more aware of certain aspects of his life; that aspect he seems more aware of is his own mortality. Richard states, “Keeps death his court…and humor’d thus comes at the last, and with a little pin bores through his castle-wall, and – farewell king!” (Act III, Scene II, 445-46).
It also should be noted how the difference between the courts of Richard II and Bolingbroke also seem to carry traces of gender identity. The court of Richard II may be viewed as the feminine “space” while Bolingbroke, who eventually becomes King Henry IV, is the male counterpart. Richard’s court is small and frail and is governed by his notion that language has power, all of which may be deemed stereotypically female traits. Bolingbroke’s court, on the other hand, is governed by armies and force which are stereotypically male qualities. Each is both in some form of extreme though, where Richard II is indecisive and easily submissive, and Bolingbroke is perhaps too decisive and feels that all power stems from might. In the end, as is typical of Shakespeare’s moral about living a life in any extreme state, both are doomed to failure. We may come to understand this notion of Richard as dominating the female aspects of the play, and where Shakespeare genders the mental spaces of the play, when he states “My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul, my soul the father” (Act V, Scene V, 458). When Richard recites these lines, he is being held in prison which can be seen a male space for it is a place of confinement and cruelty and since Shakespeare always keeps a balance between male and female, Richard is the only character to balance out the “maleness” with “femaleness”. But all this transverses in a mental state, so not only does Shakespeare gender physical spaces, but mental landscapes as well.
As we can see, Shakespeare has almost defiantly gendered space in his writings, but what this essay does not cover fully is if this gendering of space was intentional or not. Even if Shakespeare did not intentionally make this distinction (if he did it would surely give him more credit as one of the world’s greatest writers), the effects are powerful and give great insight into the notion of gender to those of the Renaissance period. Modern critics, especially those of the feminist persuasion, may find these gendered spaces as testosterone driven and cruel to women. The fact that the female-typed spaces are domestic, indoors, and away from any “real world danger” may cause them grave concern, but these are simply the cultural relics of a time long since gone.
Works Cited:
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Ed. Walter J. Black, Inc.. New York: Ferris Printing Co., 1937.
Shakespeare’s Fantastic: A Study of Lucio in Measure for Measure
Lucio is quite an interesting Shakespearian character. From the onset of the play we are introduced to Lucio as a “fantastic”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “fantastic” has a multitude of meanings, but for the purposes of comparing Lucio to this word, “fantastic” means “One who has fanciful ideas or indulges in wild notions; Fanciful, impulsive, capricious, arbitrary; also, foppish in attire. Now in stronger sense: Extravagantly fanciful, odd and irrational in behaviour” (OED). Modern audiences would most likely misinterpret Lucio’s description because the word is most commonly used to represent something that is excellent or that has been executed particularly well. With this new definition in mind, we see that Lucio is not a person who is in high status or who is a person that is regarded as “great” based on his personality. Rather, this word “fantastic” shades him in slightly darker hues and denotes that not only is he one to engage in something as relatively harmless as fancy, he may actually be dangerous with wildly erratic behavior and indulgent tendencies.
Charles Swann has done a character study of Lucio and his role in the play. He says, “If ever there was a male chauvinistic pig, then Lucio is he” (Swann, 20). His reason for using such strong language against Lucio and calling him a “chauvinist pig” is by the use of Lucio’s language in his conversation with Isabella. Swann defends this point by noting,” If, for example, he calls Isabella ‘a thing enskied and sainted’…’thing’ is, of course, a giveaway: the term neatly makes Isabella an untouchable by desexing and dehumanizing her” (Swann, 20). While I see the validity in Swann’s argument here, there may also be another way of looking at this conversation and connection between Lucio and Isabella.
Isabella is a novitiate, a woman who has recently entered the convent but has not yet taken full vows. As a woman who is on the brink of giving her life over completely to the service of God, Lucio may be approaching her in such a way as to purposely not sexualize her. Even in Renaissance times, those who gave their lives to the service of God vowed celibacy, and Lucio may be keen to keep this most basic of human urges at a minimum out of respect for Isabella. While it may be easy to view his first approach to Isabella as chauvinistic and blame Lucio for treating her as an object rather than a person, I think it is quite a bit more complicated than that. While Lucio approaches Isabella, according to Swann, as an object, Angelo, who is the acting Duke while the real Duke is undercover, sexualizes and humanizes Isabella in what I consider far worse than objectifying her.
The main plot of Measure for Measure runs as follows: Angelo is appointed by the Duke to run the city of Vienna while he is away. In actuality, the Duke has not really gone away, but rather has gone under cover as a monk to observe how Angelo, an extremist Puritan, runs the city. Because Angelo is a Puritan, he reinstates the law against fornication that the Duke has allowed to become lax. Claudio, Isabella’s brother, has gotten his wife Juliet pregnant, however their marriage was “de praesenti per verba”; not performed and sanctified by a priest, rather vows were exchanged with witnesses present. Angelo does not consider this a valid marriage, even though Renaissance audiences would generally see it as one, and charges Claudio with fornication, which, by law, carries the penalty of death. Claudio is immediately arrested and he charges Lucio to inform Isabella of what is happening for he assumes she can use her novitiate status to help get him out of prison and have the death penalty lifted.
Lucio is a fantastic and as such carries with him a certain measure of danger for his thoughts are irrational and impulsive, but I do no see this danger stemming from him being chauvinistic and mistreating women, rather this danger blossoms from his ability to instigate confrontation and use language to tempt people to his will by use of language
Isab. Alas! What poor ability’s in me to do him good.
Lucio. Assay the power you have.
Isab. My powers! Alas, I doubt,-
Lucio. Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we might oft win by fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo, and let him learn to know, when maidens sue, men give like gods (Shakespeare, 111)
This is where Lucio’s danger arises; in his ability to make fantastical and vehement arguments that seem appealing on the surface but underneath lurks a dark undertone. In the above example Lucio will not even allow Isabella to retain the notion that she is unable to offer any assistance to her brother. He has a way of subtly tricking people, by use of his over the top language, to bend their will to his own uses. If any other character was to fill this role in this conversation with Isabella, they would most likely have listened to her argument, which if it was not so aborted by Lucio would most likely be well thought out and persuasive, and the possibility of Isabella not taking action would be great. But since Lucio is the instigator, he knows exactly when to interject his fantastical ideas and language with explosive force and can persuade people to act.
Another example of Lucio being the instigator is during Isabella’s plea to Angelo to spare her brother and release him from prison. Isabella approaches Angelo in a timid and weak manner, an approach Lucio doesn’t understand and finds useless and inefficient. Her appeal to Angelo is so weak that Angelo begins to simply walk away, to which Lucio chastises Isabella by stating, “Give’t not o’er so: to him again, entreat him; you are too cold; if you should need a pin, you could not with more tame a tongue desire it: to him, I say” (Shakespeare, 115). Instead of giving up and retreating to the fact that maybe nothing can be done to change Angelo’s mind, Lucio is able to instigate Isabella to act, not just once but three or four times. The first few attempts she makes are proving unsuccessful so Lucio simply tells Isabella she is “too cold” and invites her to persuade Angelo using barbed words and fiery speeches to get him to change his mind. When she is proving to be successful, Lucio urges her on by saying “Ay, well said”. When Isabella looks like she has finally convinced Angelo to release her brother form pirions and lift his death penalty, Lucio unleashes upon her “O, to him to him, wench: he will relent; he’s coming; I perceive’t” (Shakespeare. 116).
Swann and those in agreement with him may argue that Lucio calling Isabella a wench is another example of his chauvinism, but I see it as another example of him being a fantastic. He has the ability to get so wound up in his impulsive behavior that he unwillingly called her a wench. Modern English speakers use the word “wench” as a derogatory term akin to calling a woman a “whore” and a modern reader would assume that Lucio has just insulted Isabella. However, the Oxford English Dictionary defines “wench” as “As a familiar or endearing form of address; used chiefly in addressing a daughter, wife, or sweetheart” (OED). Our modern reading of this line is now skewed with this new definition of “wench” in mind, but it does have resonance still to Lucio’s definition as a fantastic. Referring to a nun using a term that basically means “sweetheart” is a little strange but since Lucio is at his core impulsive, this term probably was said without any real thought behind it. It is interesting to note how this is used though for it is some foreshadowing of Angelo’s attraction to Isabella. Angelo takes it much farther than just being simply attracted to Isabella as a “sweetheart”; he propositions the nun to have sex with him in order to persuade him to remove the charges against her brother. The contrast between Angelo and Lucio highlights an interesting observation, one that is too large in scope to be fully discussed in this essay. But, to simplify what I have noticed, one would expect someone like Lucio, who is impulsive and seems to lack much self control, to be the one to have the audacity to ask a nun to have sex with him. But in an interesting twist of events Angelo, the ultra-strict Puritan and the character least likely to even think of something as sacrilegious as copulating with a sister, is the one to take this notion on and pursue it with the same vehemence that Lucio utilizes to charge people to do his bidding.
Lucio is a character that is almost peripheral; he has relatively few lines and those that he has are generally short. Shakespeare does not allow him to have much stage presence and gives him few moments to give grand speeches. But the lines that Lucio doe shave are powerful in their simplicity. They show him for what Shakespeare has described him as; a fantastic. He is quick, articulate, and dangerous for his short lines are charged with raw emotion and impulsiveness. If he were to have long drawn out speeches, his impulsiveness would be lost in a muddle of words and his effectiveness as an instigator would be severely diminished. We would expect the characters who have a grandiose stage presence to be the ones to drive the story along; their constant conversation and presence on the stage would move the plot in a grossly obvious way. But in Measure for Measure it is one of the characters who sticks to the background and crops up only to instigate another character to do something that is responsible for propelling the story. Lucio is such an interesting character for his power within the play regardless of his lack of presence, but in my brief search for what other scholars have discussed in relation to this character, I was slightly disappointed that he seems to be slightly overlooked with more attention being paid to Isabella, the Duke, and Angelo.
Works Cited:
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Ed. Walter J. Black, Inc.. New York: Ferris Printing Co., 1937.
Swann, Charles. “Lucio: Benefactor or Malefactor?” Critical Quaterly 29, 1 (Spring 1987): 55-70; reprinted in Shakespearean Criticism, vol. 65, ed. Michelle Lee. Gale Group: Detroit, 2002: 19-28.
Charles Swann has done a character study of Lucio and his role in the play. He says, “If ever there was a male chauvinistic pig, then Lucio is he” (Swann, 20). His reason for using such strong language against Lucio and calling him a “chauvinist pig” is by the use of Lucio’s language in his conversation with Isabella. Swann defends this point by noting,” If, for example, he calls Isabella ‘a thing enskied and sainted’…’thing’ is, of course, a giveaway: the term neatly makes Isabella an untouchable by desexing and dehumanizing her” (Swann, 20). While I see the validity in Swann’s argument here, there may also be another way of looking at this conversation and connection between Lucio and Isabella.
Isabella is a novitiate, a woman who has recently entered the convent but has not yet taken full vows. As a woman who is on the brink of giving her life over completely to the service of God, Lucio may be approaching her in such a way as to purposely not sexualize her. Even in Renaissance times, those who gave their lives to the service of God vowed celibacy, and Lucio may be keen to keep this most basic of human urges at a minimum out of respect for Isabella. While it may be easy to view his first approach to Isabella as chauvinistic and blame Lucio for treating her as an object rather than a person, I think it is quite a bit more complicated than that. While Lucio approaches Isabella, according to Swann, as an object, Angelo, who is the acting Duke while the real Duke is undercover, sexualizes and humanizes Isabella in what I consider far worse than objectifying her.
The main plot of Measure for Measure runs as follows: Angelo is appointed by the Duke to run the city of Vienna while he is away. In actuality, the Duke has not really gone away, but rather has gone under cover as a monk to observe how Angelo, an extremist Puritan, runs the city. Because Angelo is a Puritan, he reinstates the law against fornication that the Duke has allowed to become lax. Claudio, Isabella’s brother, has gotten his wife Juliet pregnant, however their marriage was “de praesenti per verba”; not performed and sanctified by a priest, rather vows were exchanged with witnesses present. Angelo does not consider this a valid marriage, even though Renaissance audiences would generally see it as one, and charges Claudio with fornication, which, by law, carries the penalty of death. Claudio is immediately arrested and he charges Lucio to inform Isabella of what is happening for he assumes she can use her novitiate status to help get him out of prison and have the death penalty lifted.
Lucio is a fantastic and as such carries with him a certain measure of danger for his thoughts are irrational and impulsive, but I do no see this danger stemming from him being chauvinistic and mistreating women, rather this danger blossoms from his ability to instigate confrontation and use language to tempt people to his will by use of language
Isab. Alas! What poor ability’s in me to do him good.
Lucio. Assay the power you have.
Isab. My powers! Alas, I doubt,-
Lucio. Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we might oft win by fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo, and let him learn to know, when maidens sue, men give like gods (Shakespeare, 111)
This is where Lucio’s danger arises; in his ability to make fantastical and vehement arguments that seem appealing on the surface but underneath lurks a dark undertone. In the above example Lucio will not even allow Isabella to retain the notion that she is unable to offer any assistance to her brother. He has a way of subtly tricking people, by use of his over the top language, to bend their will to his own uses. If any other character was to fill this role in this conversation with Isabella, they would most likely have listened to her argument, which if it was not so aborted by Lucio would most likely be well thought out and persuasive, and the possibility of Isabella not taking action would be great. But since Lucio is the instigator, he knows exactly when to interject his fantastical ideas and language with explosive force and can persuade people to act.
Another example of Lucio being the instigator is during Isabella’s plea to Angelo to spare her brother and release him from prison. Isabella approaches Angelo in a timid and weak manner, an approach Lucio doesn’t understand and finds useless and inefficient. Her appeal to Angelo is so weak that Angelo begins to simply walk away, to which Lucio chastises Isabella by stating, “Give’t not o’er so: to him again, entreat him; you are too cold; if you should need a pin, you could not with more tame a tongue desire it: to him, I say” (Shakespeare, 115). Instead of giving up and retreating to the fact that maybe nothing can be done to change Angelo’s mind, Lucio is able to instigate Isabella to act, not just once but three or four times. The first few attempts she makes are proving unsuccessful so Lucio simply tells Isabella she is “too cold” and invites her to persuade Angelo using barbed words and fiery speeches to get him to change his mind. When she is proving to be successful, Lucio urges her on by saying “Ay, well said”. When Isabella looks like she has finally convinced Angelo to release her brother form pirions and lift his death penalty, Lucio unleashes upon her “O, to him to him, wench: he will relent; he’s coming; I perceive’t” (Shakespeare. 116).
Swann and those in agreement with him may argue that Lucio calling Isabella a wench is another example of his chauvinism, but I see it as another example of him being a fantastic. He has the ability to get so wound up in his impulsive behavior that he unwillingly called her a wench. Modern English speakers use the word “wench” as a derogatory term akin to calling a woman a “whore” and a modern reader would assume that Lucio has just insulted Isabella. However, the Oxford English Dictionary defines “wench” as “As a familiar or endearing form of address; used chiefly in addressing a daughter, wife, or sweetheart” (OED). Our modern reading of this line is now skewed with this new definition of “wench” in mind, but it does have resonance still to Lucio’s definition as a fantastic. Referring to a nun using a term that basically means “sweetheart” is a little strange but since Lucio is at his core impulsive, this term probably was said without any real thought behind it. It is interesting to note how this is used though for it is some foreshadowing of Angelo’s attraction to Isabella. Angelo takes it much farther than just being simply attracted to Isabella as a “sweetheart”; he propositions the nun to have sex with him in order to persuade him to remove the charges against her brother. The contrast between Angelo and Lucio highlights an interesting observation, one that is too large in scope to be fully discussed in this essay. But, to simplify what I have noticed, one would expect someone like Lucio, who is impulsive and seems to lack much self control, to be the one to have the audacity to ask a nun to have sex with him. But in an interesting twist of events Angelo, the ultra-strict Puritan and the character least likely to even think of something as sacrilegious as copulating with a sister, is the one to take this notion on and pursue it with the same vehemence that Lucio utilizes to charge people to do his bidding.
Lucio is a character that is almost peripheral; he has relatively few lines and those that he has are generally short. Shakespeare does not allow him to have much stage presence and gives him few moments to give grand speeches. But the lines that Lucio doe shave are powerful in their simplicity. They show him for what Shakespeare has described him as; a fantastic. He is quick, articulate, and dangerous for his short lines are charged with raw emotion and impulsiveness. If he were to have long drawn out speeches, his impulsiveness would be lost in a muddle of words and his effectiveness as an instigator would be severely diminished. We would expect the characters who have a grandiose stage presence to be the ones to drive the story along; their constant conversation and presence on the stage would move the plot in a grossly obvious way. But in Measure for Measure it is one of the characters who sticks to the background and crops up only to instigate another character to do something that is responsible for propelling the story. Lucio is such an interesting character for his power within the play regardless of his lack of presence, but in my brief search for what other scholars have discussed in relation to this character, I was slightly disappointed that he seems to be slightly overlooked with more attention being paid to Isabella, the Duke, and Angelo.
Works Cited:
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Ed. Walter J. Black, Inc.. New York: Ferris Printing Co., 1937.
Swann, Charles. “Lucio: Benefactor or Malefactor?” Critical Quaterly 29, 1 (Spring 1987): 55-70; reprinted in Shakespearean Criticism, vol. 65, ed. Michelle Lee. Gale Group: Detroit, 2002: 19-28.
The Display of Disability: A Close Reading of the Authenticity of Christopher Boon from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Imagine for a moment that you are an adolescent, relatively normal looking and healthy. However, you are unable to understand others emotions, you have trouble distinguishing the sensations from your nervous system, if there is too much stimulation your body may experience it as pain, or you “live in your own world” and ignore things that most other people would find pleasurable. What you have is autism, a disorder that is marked by unusual responses, or a lack of a response, to sounds and sights, usual reactions to language, flat affect, delayed formation of fine or gross motor skills, and an extreme dependence on routine or ritualistic behaviors.
Autism has been utilized in popular media for years as the displays of bizarre behavior intrigue the general “normal” population. Probably the most popular piece of fiction that contains an autistic character is the film “Rain Man”. However, autism can be found in many works of fiction, though the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, is an eloquent and accurate description of autistic behavior and also gives the “normal” reader insight into the mind of an autistic person.
The premise of the novel is simple; Christopher Boone, the narrator and main character of the story, is an autistic adolescent who discovers his neighbor’s dog has been impaled with a pitchfork on the front lawn of his neighbor’s house. Christopher is driven by his love of mystery novels to solve this crime, and the first person narrative of his excursions opens up the door to his mind for the reader to appreciate his simplicity, honesty, and his autistic behaviors. Christopher’s autism is relatively mild and he can easily be described and vocal and high functioning. Though he is high functioning, he still possesses all the qualities of autism, some of which may be described as severely disabling. The purpose of this essay is to determine whether or not Christopher is an accurate depiction of an autistic youth, or if the author has embellished him or warped his autism towards his own benefit. One of the major problems facing the disabled community is how the disabled are portrayed in the media, whether positive or negative, and this essay’s goals is to determine whether or not this specific character is properly portrayed.
As the author of this particular essay, I have had many opportunities to work with autistic adolescents, and in all honesty they are very difficult children to handle. One child I was pair with was so active and oblivious to his surroundings that he was known to run out into the street with oncoming traffic with seeming indifference to this risky behavior. Other children I worked with were not vocal, others threw tantrums whenever some small pattern they had developed was disrupted, some self-mutilated by banging their heads on the floor, wall, or table, and several had combinations of these behaviors and then some. Aside from the typical flat affect of autistic children, meaning they do not seem to understand emotions nor are they particularly fond of displaying emotion towards others, they are very candid and honest to a fault. Because autistic peoples have a tendency to not display emotion or the fact that many of them don’t like to be touched, many people assume they are antisocial, but once a relationship is laid out, an autistic adolescent can be a very close companion aside from their supposed flaws.
Christopher Boone is no different in the respect that he doesn’t like to be touched. He even explicitly sates this fact numerous times, but especially “I do not like hugging people” (Haddon 16). This is a common trait that many autistic people have. Laura Schreibman states, “The parent may describe the slightly older child as not wanting to be held, cuddled, or kissed, sometimes actively resisting or avoiding expressions of affection…” (29). There is no real known cause of this behavior, but it is theorized that autistic children are unable to develop out of their infantile egocentricism. Autistic children are said to “live in their own world” and are only able to perceive the world from their own point of view and on their own terms. Christopher fits into this mold perfectly; he does not like being touched and has trouble thinking outside of his own realm of comfort. He also seems to lack an understanding of emotions in general, however his own emotions he can grasp but only with a very juvenile sense. To this effect, Schreibman states that “many parents come to feel that their child does not love them or need them as people, but simply relates to them as objects that provide what the child wants” (29).
This opens up yet another door into the mind of Christopher Boone; he has problems relating to people and emotions in their refined sense. Christopher has a tendency to think of people as objects, and subtle things such as metaphors or figures of speech he finds confusing. This is because Christopher, like many autistic people, has trouble understanding things that are unseen and emotions are but one of the many things “normal” people take for granted. Christopher also has problems imagining things and it could even be speculated that he lacks any semblance of an imagination at all. In his words, “I do not tell lies. Mother used to say this was because I was a good person. But it is not because I am a good person. It is because I can’t tell lies” (Haddon 19).
This may seem to be a strange quote to insert into this section about an autistic persons lack of imagination. But with some minor mental tweaking, the point will become obvious. A lie is something that is made up in spite of the truth. One must have imagination in order to think about what did not happen in order to be able to fabricate a lie. This is why many autistic people have problems telling lies because it requires imagination and the ability to think about the possibility of what could have happened, not what has happened or is happening. As such, autistic people also have problems thinking ahead and realizing consequences because the future is also intangible and cannot be tracked or measured. Lorna Wing, MD DMP, says about autistic peoples and their lack of imagination
"Autistic children never tell lies. They do not understand why it should be necessary to avoid the truth and…lack the skill with language and ideas needed to invent lies. Their naivety leads to a devastating lack of awareness…of other people’s feelings" (27).
This is the point in my research where Christopher as a character and his reputability as an authentic representation of an autistic person becomes shaky, and the caveat of this statement lies in Wing’s assumption on language. Christopher has enough developed language to articulate what he is thinking; he does not lack any type of language and is able to communicate effectively and concisely. Also, Wing’s defense is very fatalistic as if she is implying that telling lies is a good social behavior. Though it is known that autistic children had difficulty in comprehending other people’s emotions this does not mean that every autistic child is incapable of empathy. Many high-functioning autistic children who have developed language may be able to understand why people feel certain things at certain times, but this understanding is very limited and does not develop to the point of refinement it should be by early adulthood.
Another thing that is interesting to note about Christopher is his savant skills with mathematics, numbers, and puzzle solving. Some children with autism are well known and receive much publicity because of these savant skills. Some noted savant skills in autistic children are an outstanding ability to manipulate numbers in their minds, the ability to create magnificent and highly detailed copies of artwork, and the ability to recite memorized information such as all the countries of the world or the name of every capital city of each country. Christopher is a savant in the areas of mathematics, drawing, and he also knows the name of every country in the world and its associated capitol city. This area of Christopher’s character is defiantly a purposeful embellishment on the author’s behalf in order to make the story more interesting and Christopher more exceptional so the reader is drawn into his mind. Most autistic children with skills at a savant level are only gifted within a very specific framework.
The reason some autistic children have such highly honed skills is because, as stated before, they have a very limited scope of the world. This may be though of as having “tunnel vision”; only what is in view at the end of the tunnel does the autistic child focus on, everything else is not processed. Cindy Lawson says that being autistic is “due to our being single-minded, our focus will be like that of a narrow beam of light: we see less of the wider picture” (25). The savant skills of autistic children are so narrowly focused and their abilities are so highly specific, it is unlikely that Christopher would possess three sets of skills in such differing areas of facility.
Christopher’s abilities are so numerous and highly honed that it detracts from his believability as an authentic representation of an autistic youth. He is able to calculate numbers within seconds, has an amazing photographic memory from which he can draw what events happened on specific dates and recall the most minute details of the event, he can draw highly detailed pictures from memory, and is a cartographer in so much as he can draw a map of an area by remembering what streets he has traveled down. The examples of the text are too numerous to list, but the most obvious is that Christopher numbers his chapters based on the prime numbers because he likes them since they are organized and goes into a very detailed account of how to determine what is a prime number even providing a chart. The way in which Haddon portrays Christopher’s skills is so unrealistic and unbelievable; however the author has chosen the correct skill set to choose from. Because autistic children lack an imagination, which allows one to think figuratively or symbolically, autistic children’s “special abilities most commonly lie in the areas of rote memory, mathematical calculations, mechanical skills, or musical ability” (Schreibman 45).
Autistic children seem to strictly use of the areas of the brain that are associated with mathematics, music, organization, spatial ability, etc. Since this side of the brain seems to almost be exclusively used, autistic children have an extreme dependency on routine and participate in ritualistic behavior that seems to have no apparent benefit to the child nor does it seem to have any connection to environment since autistic children’s sensibilities of their environment are limited. This is another set of behaviors that Haddon fits Christopher into perfectly. Unlike savant skills, ritualistic behavior and a need for routine or organization can take on many numerous, and apparently bizarre, forms in an autistic person. As abundant as Christopher’s savant skills are, he has just as many ritualistic tendencies. He also has an unshakable dependency on routine, and when this routine is broken, Christopher is unable to cope with the changes. Now I will discuss one of Christopher’s ritualistic behaviors; basing the quality of his day (good or bad) on the amount of certain colored cars he sees in a row on his way to school.
Ritualistic behaviors are behaviors that are done in an exact order without any deviation, they may be done only at certain times or repeated over the course of time, and have little to no apparent effect on the person or environment. Most ritualistic behaviors are self-stimulatory (though not always sexually) and their only purpose is to make the participant “feel better”. As stated before Christopher bases how good or bad his day will be as follows: “…4 red cars in a row made it a good Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and…4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day…” (Haddon 24). In actuality, this is a combination of a ritualistic behavior and Christopher’s unnatural fear of the color yellow. According to Marcia Datlow Smith contends that ritualistic behavior is caused by “…having a narrow range of interests…people with autism are often highly dependant on set routines” (4). This dependence causes seemingly innocuous behaviors to fall into a rigid pattern and any disruption to this pattern can have an extreme effect on the behavior of an autistic person.
Christopher reacts in much the same way when he is forced out of his rage of comfort. However, for purpose of the story, Christopher forces himself out of his comfort zone by his own volition. Most autistic people, even high functional ones like Christopher, would probably never break their routines or wander outside their area of comfort on their own; someone else would have to force them out of it. But even though Christopher pushes himself out of the house and into a strange world that he doesn’t comprehend, he still reacts to the world in a typical autistic fashion. When he is scared, disturbed by loud noises, approached by strangers who use figurative language that confuses him, his behaviors are very much like that of any autistic person. He rocks back and forth, moans, contorts himself into positions that “normal” people would probably find bizarre or makes guttural utterances that he says were “like a dog barking” (Haddon 173).
So is Christopher as a literary figure an accurate representation of “real-life” autism? Yes, he certainly is, however the author has taken some liberties by expanding some symptoms of autism for purpose of the story. But Christopher does break down barriers that many people may hold against autistic people. We feel for Christopher, not so much because of his condition, but because Haddon has an uncanny way of painting his as “normal” in spite of his obvious disability. Haddon also makes Christopher’s disability seem like a good thing in a way; Christopher is not complicated and does not get tangled up in a sordid web of details. He states frankly what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what he thinks, and what he wants to do. There is no room in Christopher’s life or mind for embellishment, lies, deceit, etc. Haddon’s description of a high functioning autistic individual is quite a positive one; he did not write this story to defame autistic people and to show how their disability interferes with their life. On the contrary Haddon has sculpted a well though out way of enabling disabled people by doing just the opposite and turning Christopher’s potentially disabling condition into one that helps him succeed.
Works Cited:
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. New York: Vintage
Contemporaries, 2003.
Lawson, Wendy. Sex, Sexuality, and the Autism Spectrum. London: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers, 2005.
Schreibman, Laura. The Science and Fiction of Autism. Cambridge: Harvard U. P..,
2005.
Smith, Marcia Datlow. Autism and Life in the Community: Successful Interventions for
Behavioral Challenges. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1990.
Wing, Lorna. Autistic Children: A Guide for Parents. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1972.
Autism has been utilized in popular media for years as the displays of bizarre behavior intrigue the general “normal” population. Probably the most popular piece of fiction that contains an autistic character is the film “Rain Man”. However, autism can be found in many works of fiction, though the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, is an eloquent and accurate description of autistic behavior and also gives the “normal” reader insight into the mind of an autistic person.
The premise of the novel is simple; Christopher Boone, the narrator and main character of the story, is an autistic adolescent who discovers his neighbor’s dog has been impaled with a pitchfork on the front lawn of his neighbor’s house. Christopher is driven by his love of mystery novels to solve this crime, and the first person narrative of his excursions opens up the door to his mind for the reader to appreciate his simplicity, honesty, and his autistic behaviors. Christopher’s autism is relatively mild and he can easily be described and vocal and high functioning. Though he is high functioning, he still possesses all the qualities of autism, some of which may be described as severely disabling. The purpose of this essay is to determine whether or not Christopher is an accurate depiction of an autistic youth, or if the author has embellished him or warped his autism towards his own benefit. One of the major problems facing the disabled community is how the disabled are portrayed in the media, whether positive or negative, and this essay’s goals is to determine whether or not this specific character is properly portrayed.
As the author of this particular essay, I have had many opportunities to work with autistic adolescents, and in all honesty they are very difficult children to handle. One child I was pair with was so active and oblivious to his surroundings that he was known to run out into the street with oncoming traffic with seeming indifference to this risky behavior. Other children I worked with were not vocal, others threw tantrums whenever some small pattern they had developed was disrupted, some self-mutilated by banging their heads on the floor, wall, or table, and several had combinations of these behaviors and then some. Aside from the typical flat affect of autistic children, meaning they do not seem to understand emotions nor are they particularly fond of displaying emotion towards others, they are very candid and honest to a fault. Because autistic peoples have a tendency to not display emotion or the fact that many of them don’t like to be touched, many people assume they are antisocial, but once a relationship is laid out, an autistic adolescent can be a very close companion aside from their supposed flaws.
Christopher Boone is no different in the respect that he doesn’t like to be touched. He even explicitly sates this fact numerous times, but especially “I do not like hugging people” (Haddon 16). This is a common trait that many autistic people have. Laura Schreibman states, “The parent may describe the slightly older child as not wanting to be held, cuddled, or kissed, sometimes actively resisting or avoiding expressions of affection…” (29). There is no real known cause of this behavior, but it is theorized that autistic children are unable to develop out of their infantile egocentricism. Autistic children are said to “live in their own world” and are only able to perceive the world from their own point of view and on their own terms. Christopher fits into this mold perfectly; he does not like being touched and has trouble thinking outside of his own realm of comfort. He also seems to lack an understanding of emotions in general, however his own emotions he can grasp but only with a very juvenile sense. To this effect, Schreibman states that “many parents come to feel that their child does not love them or need them as people, but simply relates to them as objects that provide what the child wants” (29).
This opens up yet another door into the mind of Christopher Boone; he has problems relating to people and emotions in their refined sense. Christopher has a tendency to think of people as objects, and subtle things such as metaphors or figures of speech he finds confusing. This is because Christopher, like many autistic people, has trouble understanding things that are unseen and emotions are but one of the many things “normal” people take for granted. Christopher also has problems imagining things and it could even be speculated that he lacks any semblance of an imagination at all. In his words, “I do not tell lies. Mother used to say this was because I was a good person. But it is not because I am a good person. It is because I can’t tell lies” (Haddon 19).
This may seem to be a strange quote to insert into this section about an autistic persons lack of imagination. But with some minor mental tweaking, the point will become obvious. A lie is something that is made up in spite of the truth. One must have imagination in order to think about what did not happen in order to be able to fabricate a lie. This is why many autistic people have problems telling lies because it requires imagination and the ability to think about the possibility of what could have happened, not what has happened or is happening. As such, autistic people also have problems thinking ahead and realizing consequences because the future is also intangible and cannot be tracked or measured. Lorna Wing, MD DMP, says about autistic peoples and their lack of imagination
"Autistic children never tell lies. They do not understand why it should be necessary to avoid the truth and…lack the skill with language and ideas needed to invent lies. Their naivety leads to a devastating lack of awareness…of other people’s feelings" (27).
This is the point in my research where Christopher as a character and his reputability as an authentic representation of an autistic person becomes shaky, and the caveat of this statement lies in Wing’s assumption on language. Christopher has enough developed language to articulate what he is thinking; he does not lack any type of language and is able to communicate effectively and concisely. Also, Wing’s defense is very fatalistic as if she is implying that telling lies is a good social behavior. Though it is known that autistic children had difficulty in comprehending other people’s emotions this does not mean that every autistic child is incapable of empathy. Many high-functioning autistic children who have developed language may be able to understand why people feel certain things at certain times, but this understanding is very limited and does not develop to the point of refinement it should be by early adulthood.
Another thing that is interesting to note about Christopher is his savant skills with mathematics, numbers, and puzzle solving. Some children with autism are well known and receive much publicity because of these savant skills. Some noted savant skills in autistic children are an outstanding ability to manipulate numbers in their minds, the ability to create magnificent and highly detailed copies of artwork, and the ability to recite memorized information such as all the countries of the world or the name of every capital city of each country. Christopher is a savant in the areas of mathematics, drawing, and he also knows the name of every country in the world and its associated capitol city. This area of Christopher’s character is defiantly a purposeful embellishment on the author’s behalf in order to make the story more interesting and Christopher more exceptional so the reader is drawn into his mind. Most autistic children with skills at a savant level are only gifted within a very specific framework.
The reason some autistic children have such highly honed skills is because, as stated before, they have a very limited scope of the world. This may be though of as having “tunnel vision”; only what is in view at the end of the tunnel does the autistic child focus on, everything else is not processed. Cindy Lawson says that being autistic is “due to our being single-minded, our focus will be like that of a narrow beam of light: we see less of the wider picture” (25). The savant skills of autistic children are so narrowly focused and their abilities are so highly specific, it is unlikely that Christopher would possess three sets of skills in such differing areas of facility.
Christopher’s abilities are so numerous and highly honed that it detracts from his believability as an authentic representation of an autistic youth. He is able to calculate numbers within seconds, has an amazing photographic memory from which he can draw what events happened on specific dates and recall the most minute details of the event, he can draw highly detailed pictures from memory, and is a cartographer in so much as he can draw a map of an area by remembering what streets he has traveled down. The examples of the text are too numerous to list, but the most obvious is that Christopher numbers his chapters based on the prime numbers because he likes them since they are organized and goes into a very detailed account of how to determine what is a prime number even providing a chart. The way in which Haddon portrays Christopher’s skills is so unrealistic and unbelievable; however the author has chosen the correct skill set to choose from. Because autistic children lack an imagination, which allows one to think figuratively or symbolically, autistic children’s “special abilities most commonly lie in the areas of rote memory, mathematical calculations, mechanical skills, or musical ability” (Schreibman 45).
Autistic children seem to strictly use of the areas of the brain that are associated with mathematics, music, organization, spatial ability, etc. Since this side of the brain seems to almost be exclusively used, autistic children have an extreme dependency on routine and participate in ritualistic behavior that seems to have no apparent benefit to the child nor does it seem to have any connection to environment since autistic children’s sensibilities of their environment are limited. This is another set of behaviors that Haddon fits Christopher into perfectly. Unlike savant skills, ritualistic behavior and a need for routine or organization can take on many numerous, and apparently bizarre, forms in an autistic person. As abundant as Christopher’s savant skills are, he has just as many ritualistic tendencies. He also has an unshakable dependency on routine, and when this routine is broken, Christopher is unable to cope with the changes. Now I will discuss one of Christopher’s ritualistic behaviors; basing the quality of his day (good or bad) on the amount of certain colored cars he sees in a row on his way to school.
Ritualistic behaviors are behaviors that are done in an exact order without any deviation, they may be done only at certain times or repeated over the course of time, and have little to no apparent effect on the person or environment. Most ritualistic behaviors are self-stimulatory (though not always sexually) and their only purpose is to make the participant “feel better”. As stated before Christopher bases how good or bad his day will be as follows: “…4 red cars in a row made it a good Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and…4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day…” (Haddon 24). In actuality, this is a combination of a ritualistic behavior and Christopher’s unnatural fear of the color yellow. According to Marcia Datlow Smith contends that ritualistic behavior is caused by “…having a narrow range of interests…people with autism are often highly dependant on set routines” (4). This dependence causes seemingly innocuous behaviors to fall into a rigid pattern and any disruption to this pattern can have an extreme effect on the behavior of an autistic person.
Christopher reacts in much the same way when he is forced out of his rage of comfort. However, for purpose of the story, Christopher forces himself out of his comfort zone by his own volition. Most autistic people, even high functional ones like Christopher, would probably never break their routines or wander outside their area of comfort on their own; someone else would have to force them out of it. But even though Christopher pushes himself out of the house and into a strange world that he doesn’t comprehend, he still reacts to the world in a typical autistic fashion. When he is scared, disturbed by loud noises, approached by strangers who use figurative language that confuses him, his behaviors are very much like that of any autistic person. He rocks back and forth, moans, contorts himself into positions that “normal” people would probably find bizarre or makes guttural utterances that he says were “like a dog barking” (Haddon 173).
So is Christopher as a literary figure an accurate representation of “real-life” autism? Yes, he certainly is, however the author has taken some liberties by expanding some symptoms of autism for purpose of the story. But Christopher does break down barriers that many people may hold against autistic people. We feel for Christopher, not so much because of his condition, but because Haddon has an uncanny way of painting his as “normal” in spite of his obvious disability. Haddon also makes Christopher’s disability seem like a good thing in a way; Christopher is not complicated and does not get tangled up in a sordid web of details. He states frankly what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what he thinks, and what he wants to do. There is no room in Christopher’s life or mind for embellishment, lies, deceit, etc. Haddon’s description of a high functioning autistic individual is quite a positive one; he did not write this story to defame autistic people and to show how their disability interferes with their life. On the contrary Haddon has sculpted a well though out way of enabling disabled people by doing just the opposite and turning Christopher’s potentially disabling condition into one that helps him succeed.
Works Cited:
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. New York: Vintage
Contemporaries, 2003.
Lawson, Wendy. Sex, Sexuality, and the Autism Spectrum. London: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers, 2005.
Schreibman, Laura. The Science and Fiction of Autism. Cambridge: Harvard U. P..,
2005.
Smith, Marcia Datlow. Autism and Life in the Community: Successful Interventions for
Behavioral Challenges. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1990.
Wing, Lorna. Autistic Children: A Guide for Parents. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1972.