Articulating Bodies: The Narrative Form of Disability and Illness in Victorian Fiction

• Published in: Victorian Studies Vol. 63; no. 2; pp. 310 - 312
• Main Author: Prizel, Natalie
• Format: Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomington Indiana University Press 01.01.2021
• Subjects: 19th century; Art galleries & museums; Dickens, Charles (1812-1870); Disability; Disorders; Empathy; Fiction; Hugo, Victor (1802-1885); Illnesses; Novels; Perceptions; Plot (Narrative); Religion; Scars; Victorian period
• DOI: 10.2979/victorianstudies.63.2.23
• ISSN: 0042-5222

Esther has experienced both impairment and the socially disabling effects of her marked face, marked in ways that are embodied, social, and functional in terms of plot (since the scarring effaces Esther's resemblance to her mother). The narratological concept of focalization does double-duty as an optical concept as well, and Hingston's emphasis on the role of perception in determining bodily normativity or deviance is a welcome approach, expanding our conception of disability outwards from solely a discursive category to a broader perceptual and even phenomenological concept, even in a book fundamentally concerned with textuality. In the fall of 2021, she will begin a term as Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the History of Art and Visual Culture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.