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Pathology and Pity: The Interdependence of Medical and Moral Models of Disability in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

Sydlik, Andrew J.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587476303532943

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
Pathology and Pity traces the interdependence of medical and moral models of disability in American literature of the long nineteenth-century, from Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive (1797), to several short stories by Edgar Allan Poe in the 1840s, to the promotional materials of stuttering school literature from the 1880s to the 1920s, to Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, unpublished at the time of Melville’s death but composed 1888-1891. The interdependence of these models shapes not just the way that disability is represented in the works examined, but also the way that disability functions in and shapes the narratives. Each chapter focuses on how medical and moral discourses related to a particular disability - blindness, madness, and stuttering - in contemporaneous philosophical, medical, journalistic, and promotional writings influenced the literary works examined. Throughout nineteenth-century America, the relationship between medical and moral models of disability produced a number of related discourses that tie into Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power and biopower: compulsory ablebodiedness; disability as an object of and barrier to sympathy; the push toward cure; the ability of diagnosis to reliably read pathological and moral defects; the connection between willpower, self-awareness, and ability; the benevolence of medicine; and the elevation of expertise. Some works of American nineteenth-century literature reinforce these discourses, others challenge them, and some exhibit a tension between the two positions. Disability functions as a narrative device to speak to national debates in American culture and to comment on the very nature of storytelling and reading. Tyler’s novel uses the cure of blindness to reflect on the proper way of seeing America and telling the story of becoming a proper American citizen. Poe’s stories incorporate anxieties about madness and psychiatric diagnosis to address concerns about criminal responsibility and the role of insane asylums in a democratic society. This anxiety questions the reliability of narrative and interpretation. Stuttering school literature plays on the elevation of everyday speech as a cornerstone of American life and the heteronormative figure of the economically productive, self-reliant male as a symbol of social mobility. Billy Budd aligns stuttering with the silencing of political revolutionaries and imperialism’s abrogation of commoners’ rights in the service of justice and order. And its style parallels the digressions and silences experienced by stutterers, demonstrating that stories need not be told in the most direct and fluent manner.
Amy Shuman (Advisor)
Molly Farrell (Committee Member)
Elizabeth Renker (Committee Member)
330 p.
American History; American Literature; American Studies; Epistemology; Ethics; History; Literature; Medical Ethics; Science History
disability; nineteenth-century American literature; medical model of disability; moral model of disability; blindness; madness; stuttering; disability in American literature; Royall Tyler; Edgar Allan Poe; Herman Melville; stuttering schools

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Sydlik, A. J. (2020). Pathology and Pity: The Interdependence of Medical and Moral Models of Disability in Nineteenth-Century American Literature [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587476303532943

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sydlik, Andrew. Pathology and Pity: The Interdependence of Medical and Moral Models of Disability in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587476303532943.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sydlik, Andrew. "Pathology and Pity: The Interdependence of Medical and Moral Models of Disability in Nineteenth-Century American Literature." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587476303532943

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1587476303532943
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.