Representations of Dyslexia Across Genres in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Sitting at the intersection of disability studies, genre studies, and children’s and young adult (YA) literature scholarship, this doctoral thesis centres the representations of dyslexia and dyslexics across genres. Commonly defined within the medical model of disability as the struggle to read, write, spell, and acquire literacy skills, dyslexia is a learning disability which is estimated to affect up to 10% of the world’s population. While various studies have been conducted on dynamic and positive portrayals of dyslexic characters in children’s and YA fiction, few have examined how the Western culture of English literacy is disabling. Building on the work of Craig Collinson’s post-social model of dyslexia, ‘Lexism’ is a soft category—akin to those of racism or sexism—which examines how normative practices of literacy can discriminate or Other dyslexics. Within children’s and YA fiction, Lexism can be used as a theoretical lens to examine the representation of characters most Othered and disabled by normative literacy—dyslexics. Lexism’s dominance is further upheld and rarely troubled by the genre conventions which help construct these narratives and thus cultural understandings of dyslexia. This thesis argues that the genre conventions of the contemporary school story, detective fiction, and fantasy are commonly used as narrative tactics to reaffirm the social norms complicit in disabling dyslexics – reflecting pervasive deficit models of disability rather than troubling how normative literacy practices continue to Other dyslexics. This thesis is split into two parts: contemporary realism and fantasy. Part One examines the genre of the school story in Chapter One and the detective story (and the genre of mystery more broadly) in Chapter Two. I argue that the school story establishes what I call the ‘dyslexic diagnosis paradigm’ which inducts dyslexics and lexics alike into Lexism through institutional educational practice including that of a learning disability diagnosis. This dyslexic diagnosis paradigm is enforced using elements of the detective story: when teacher ‘detectives’ help their twinned victim/villain-coded dyslexics to solve the mystery of their literacy struggles, I argue that the affect of this narrative closure inhibits critique of this Lexist system as diagnosis is positioned as a successful return to the status quo within the school. These school and detective stories strengthen the dominance of the medical model of disability and Lexism in contemporary narratives. Using Farah Mendlesohn’s taxonomy, Part Two splits the fantasy genre into portal fantasy (Chapter Three), intrusive fantasy (Chapter Four), and immersive fantasy (Chapter Five). Each rhetorical mode illustrates different ways in which the fantastic troubles Lexism. I argue that the fantastical portals which enable dyslexics to travel to worlds wherein they are no longer Othered by Lexism do so through the trope of the magical cure. This trope not only enforces a hierarchy of disability but demonstrates how psychological closures of the dyslexic diagnosis paradigm enact a form of ‘cure’ narrative. While intrusive fantasy can interrupt medical diagnosis with fantastical origins, turning struggling students into quick-thinking heroes, I argue this fantastic version of dyslexia remains tied to a genetic tradition of dyslexic ‘thingness’ in creating a ‘myth’ of dyslexia. Immersive fantasy can either wholly reproduce Lexism within fantastical otherwords or enable a deconstruction of Lexism through magical means. In worlds where the dyslexic fallacy is replicated, I argue how, while illiterate populations can gain independence through obtaining literacy, dyslexics must find means of becoming interdependent to survive. Conversely, texts which depict a form of ‘magical dyslexia’ enable a deconstruction of how Lexism permeates language and culture promoting a counternarrative to the dyslexic diagnosis paradigm. While all these genres are haunted by the predominant narrative of the dyslexic diagnosis paradigm, an analysis of genre conventions reveals new avenues through which scholars and readers may better understand the dyslexic identity as one Othered by Lexism.
Children's Literature, Young Adult Literature, Dyslexia, Neurodiversity, Disability Studies, Learning Disabilities, Genre, Contemporary Realism, Mystery/Detective, Fantasy
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