![]() The text positions Helva as disabled in the opening lines of the novel: “She was born a thing and as such would be condemned if she failed to pass the encephalograph test required of all newborn babies” (McCaffrey 1). ![]() The main character of The Ship Who Sang is a disabled woman, Helva, whose body is encased in a spaceship. ![]() This presentation invites a reconsideration of criticisms of McCaffrey’s novel, presenting an alternate reading of the text as an ironic critique of utopian narratives. Over the past decade, criticism of Anne McCaffrey’s science fiction novel The Ship Who Sang (1969) has focused on a perceived erasure of disability from its imagined future. Utopian narratives often include these “cured” futures as a natural part of human evolution or as a sign of progress. Alison Kafer argues that social discourses concerning the future often erase or discount disabled bodyminds, excluding them from the fantastic or imagined futures: “if disability is conceptualized as a terrible unending tragedy, then any future that includes disability can only be a future to avoid” (259). The future of the bodymind and the emergence of the posthuman remains one of the most ethically charged points of social discourses concerning medical and technological advancements, especially those that affect disabled people. ![]() ![]() The Reclamation of McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang: Irony as Resistance to Utopian Ableist Narratives ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |