Abstract
Mainstream American culture still commonly considers disabilities as defects. Whether physical, emotional, or mental in nature, these features are hindering an individual, separating them from the perceived norm, and having a negative impact on their acceptance. Films and literature targeting children and young adults currently are seeking to change this impression. One example of this phenomenon is the disabled characters in Pixar’s animated movie Finding Nemo. In the wake of the film’s popularity, a plethora of middle-grade and young adult novels also began using piscine symbols, imagery, and idioms to frame, present, and discuss disability. Symbolic devices found in cover art and within these texts, such as “fish out of water” and “swim against the tide,” demonstrate the condition of the disabled characters in children’s literature, providing non-human representations to bridge the theoretical gap between the medically diagnosed disabilities and the reality of the social identity of the lives of those who have a disability. This study examines texts, published from 2006 to 2015 that all use fish as symbols to examine issues of identity, especially in relation to disability. Reading the novels through the lens of disability studies highlights the ways in which these fish symbols and fish-related idioms sometimes portray disabled characters in reductive, simplistic ways, but also often work to portray disabled characters holistically and as possessing agency against the expectations of the norm.
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Notes
This term is described by the Gifted and Talented Children’s Act (1978). While not specifically a disability described by the American Psychiatric Association or in IDEA, gifted abilities can present themselves in the form of a disability to an individual and will therefore be utilized for the purpose of this discussion.
These terms align with the diagnosis definitions prescribed by the American Psychiatric Association (“Diagnostic”), as well as the Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act (2004).
“Silence is Goldfish” also alludes to the idiomatic phrase “silence is golden,” which emphasizes the importance of not speaking (“The American” 584). Since this idiomatic phrase does not relate to fish, it will not be discussed in this paper. However, there is a connection between this idiom and the condition of selective mutism.
The cover of Silence is Goldfish has been recently changed for United States publication in 2016. For the purpose of this paper, the original cover image from the United Kingdom publication will be discussed.
Dying to Know You (2012) is written from the perspective of this elderly author. This book is the only text mentioned in this discussion that is not narrated at any point by the person with the disability or a third-person narrator, providing an outsider’s first-person perspective of the disability.
Moolio is a nickname used in the book as a shortened form of “Coolio Moolio” (Schmatz 220) and used to give a positive connotation to a situation.
This phrase, derived from the idiom “a fine kettle of fish” is defined earlier in this paper as a part of the initial explanation of idioms.
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Megan R. Brown is a doctoral student in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University with an M.A. in Children’s Literature and a B.S. in Elementary and Special Education. Her past experiences include numerous teaching opportunities with disabled students, both inside and outside of the public school setting. Currently, her research focuses on the areas of disability studies, children’s literature, visual studies, and literacy education.
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Brown, M.R. “Swimming Against the Tide”: Disability Represented Through Fish Symbolism in (and on) Middle Grade and Young Adult Novels. Child Lit Educ 50, 193–209 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-017-9335-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-017-9335-5