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Chapter 3 - Blindness as Metaphorical Death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2023

Marchella Ward
Affiliation:
The Open University, Milton Keynes
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Summary

Chapter Three begins with a reading of Everyman, and deals with the persistent narrative use of disability as a kind of metaphorical death. This is not just the case in medieval or early modern drama, but persists in the present day where it is still evident in the dangerous (and deadly) ideological fantasy that insists that disabled people’s lives are less worth living than those of enabled people. As well as examining this trope in texts like Seneca’s Oedipus, and through characters such as Lamech in biblically-inspired drama, this chapter also begins to address some of the problems of the model of a classical tradition as a way of figuring reception. The chapter closes with some thoughts on the relationship between this eugenicist conflating of disability and closeness to death, and gender.

Type
Chapter
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Blindness and Spectatorship in Ancient and Modern Theatres
Towards New Ways of Looking and Looking Back
, pp. 109 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Blindness as Metaphorical Death
  • Marchella Ward, The Open University, Milton Keynes
  • Book: Blindness and Spectatorship in Ancient and Modern Theatres
  • Online publication: 30 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009372732.004
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  • Blindness as Metaphorical Death
  • Marchella Ward, The Open University, Milton Keynes
  • Book: Blindness and Spectatorship in Ancient and Modern Theatres
  • Online publication: 30 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009372732.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Blindness as Metaphorical Death
  • Marchella Ward, The Open University, Milton Keynes
  • Book: Blindness and Spectatorship in Ancient and Modern Theatres
  • Online publication: 30 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009372732.004
Available formats
×