Disability In Frankenstein

Literature is drastically different from real life. How someone is depicted in a narrative could be how people truly are, but it also could be completely wrong. In either situation, this can give different views of how people want to be represented. This representation can even be more skewed when the portrayal is by someone who does not identify with the people being depicted. An example of a literary representation of disability is in the play Richard III by William Shakespeare through a disabled character, Richard. A real life depiction is from Francis Bacon, a renaissance statesman and philosopher, who wrote Of Deformity in which he discusses what he thinks deformed people are like, even though he does not have a disability. These two works can be compared in relation to their perspectives of disability. Ultimately, the

It represents a negative viewpoint of disability throughout the entire span of the play. The reader understands that Richard is murdering people because he wants to be the king, and because of this, readers see Richard as an evil character. He is murdering all of his family when they are most vulnerable, which no sane person would think of doing, but Richard does. If people understand that Richard has a disability, it may corroborate the idea that disability and evilness go together. Furthermore, because of the Duchess of York’s description, Richard can be seen as someone who had been a “bad” child. This description also exuberates the idea that Richard was always evil, and will continue to be evil throughout his life. This solidifies the idea that the play treats deformity as something that means a person is corrupt. Conclusively the play, through these two instances, represents the idea that someone with a disability is evil, and therefore treats deformity with a negative