Zero to Hero
Disability studies and disability literature are relatively new
interdisciplinary academic fields focusing on how people with
disabilities show up in history, literature, social policy, law,
architecture, and other disciplines.
The disable community of a country has the potential to become a
powerful lobby, politically and economically. Particularly in a country
like Sri Lanka which has been affected with a civil war, it is worth to
investigate how the disable people are welcomed by their society. As
literature informs and is informed by society, depiction disability in
literature is a topic worthy of consideration.
When talking about disable characters in literature, many books come
to my mind instantly. First, is A Story of a Real Man by Soviet writer
Boris Polevoi. Sinhala readers are privileged to read the translation of
this book as Saba Minisekuge Kathawak. It is a story of downed WWII
Soviet fighter pilot Alexiei Maresyev, who with both feet amputated
because of frostbite, returns to combat flying.
In A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens too has a crippled character
named Tiny Tim.
The presence of the crippled Tiny Tim adds an element of
sentimentality to the description which helps to evoke the shared
emotional response in the audience that would unite them in a community
of feeling.
The depiction of Tiny Tim elicits the empathy amongst his readers
that Dickens saw as essential to the Christmas spirit. Dickens writes,
“Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch and had his limbs supported
by an iron frame”.
Angela Carter’s post modern novel The Passion of New Eve will be the
final novel to be focused since it also talks about crippled. It
contains satirical overtones and it would appear, at first glance, that
Carter has been particularly harsh in her portrayal of the disabled
character, Zero. The name Zero itself implies the state of disable
people.
It is difficult to interpret every writer’s portrayal of a disabled
character. There is a possibility that some writers use the disability
of their characters as a criticism of society’s attitudes towards
disabled people.
Generally, the books that kids are basically reading in Australia,
the books they would buy in the bookshop, are Harry Potter, Dr Seuss or
Enid Blyton. Australian writer Alan Marshall’s book, I Can Jump Puddles
is something amazing to me. Comparing to Harry Potter, this was a story
not a fantasy, which really Enid Blyton’s Famous Five was. But this is a
real story about a real boy, told by a man in his forties, who has an
incredible memory for what happened to him when he contracted polio.
It is not the crutches that bring the rich and wonderful life, it is
the type of mind that one is forced to cultivate because of crutches.
Marshal has presented how a disable boy becomes an observer. He becomes
an onlooker and therefore, being able to watch people and him become
more compassionate and he understands the community more. And most of
all, the fact that a disable swinging on crutches often enables him to
meet many people that he would not meet otherwise.
Alan Marshal is resurrecting in Sinhala literary canon as his I Can
Jump Puddles is translated as Mata Puluwan by Kathyana Amarasinghe.
A book such as I Can Jump Puddles will build up the mindsets of a
society to think different as well as humane towards disables. Kathyana,
who has already translated seven English novels into Sinhala, would
never disappoint her readers, because she would not survive in the field
of translation if she did before.
She emerged in the field of literature as a poet, so I believe that
she would possess the essential requirements in translating such a
novel: passion and sensitivity. Lets read the metamorphosis how zero
becomes a hero. |
