Tag: Novels
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Dhalgren’s Bellona: The Ruins of Morning
“Here I am and am no I. This circle in all, this change changing in winterless, a dawn circle with an image of, an autumn change with a change of mist. Mistake two pictures, one and another. No. Only in seasons of shortlight, only on dead afternoons. I will not be sick again” (55).
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Dhalgren’s Bellona: Prism, Mirror, Lens
Dhalgren is a 1975 science-fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany, a gay, dyslexic, dysmetric author best known for works including Babel-17 (1966), The Einstein Intersection (1967), Nova (1968), and Dhalgren, although he has written many more books and essays. Dhalgren is thought of by many as being an exploration of his neurodivergency in a way…
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Gender in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – Chapter 8 of 1831 Edition
[Written for my IB English Literature class.] Justine, as one of the few women so far introduced in Frankenstein, is important to read into from a feminist perspective. Elizabeth, one of the other significant women, is viewed by Victor as his possession due to her adoption as a “gift” to him. As Victor already clearly…
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His Dark Materials: Disability in “The Subtle Knife”
I’ve written about the second season of the TV adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, so I think it’s only fair that I write about the second book. The show is a close adaptation in many ways, but it’s been a while since I read the trilogy, and I’m curious about how it compares.…
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Disability in “Iron Widow”
Iron Widow is a 2021 young adult fantasy novel by Xiran Jay Zhao (they/them). It’s an imaginative futuristic retelling of the story of China’s only female emperor, Wu Zetian. It’s particularly notable for Chinese and queer representation, but I’d like to highlight the disabled representation presented by Zetian.
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Deafness in Brian Selznick’s “Wonderstruck”
Wonderstruck is a 2011 “novel in words and pictures” about two deaf children, Ben and Rose, with their stories taking place fifty years apart. Rose’s story is told in pictures and Ben’s in words.
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Bran Davies vs. Disability Tropes
Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Sequence is a fantasy novel series published between 1965 and 1977. Surprisingly, her books feature an albinistic protagonist, who makes his first appearance in the fourth book, The Grey King, originally published in 1975. Part of what made The Dark is Rising stand out to me when I read…