Illness as Metaphor: Comparing the Transatlantic Representations of Neurological Deviance in the Works of Charles Dickens and Herman Melville
Date
2022-05
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (1841) and
Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” (1853) are two
stories featuring titular protagonists whose neurological conditions mark them as
different from the rest of society. The eponymous protagonist in Barnaby suffers from
“idiocy,” now formally termed intellectual disability disorder, whereas the eponymous
protagonist in “Bartleby” displays traits of autism, a condition characterized by an
impairment in language and communicability. Although Dickens and Melville both
present characters who are neurologically deviant, the purpose of doing so is
diametrically different in each work. Through Barnaby, Dickens expresses a need for
paternalistic reform on both a state and communal level to assist the mentally ill, as
well as the rest of society’s most vulnerable groups. Barnaby is not an unambiguous
censure of British society, however; in the story, Dickens suggests a need for the
existing British practice of moral management, which was a technique of non-restraint
originally used in state asylums to treat the mentally ill. Melville, on the other hand,
uses “Bartleby” to criticize the American medical system’s tendency to institutionalize
members of society who are considered to be “deviant”. In the case of “Bartleby”, this
deviance is communicated through autism, which manifests itself into seemingly
unusual patterns of work and correspondence that confuse the story’s narrator, a
lawyer. As such, “Bartleby” and Barnaby represent ideologically opposing
perspectives of medicine and its potential to heal society’s outcasts. Whereas Dickens
expresses interest in assisting individuals deemed to be non-normative, Melville
portrays normativity itself as mercurial and conditional rather than an innate human
disposition.
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Keywords
Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Neurological deviance, Literature