random stuff, part 2: DumbStruck, or why Maria Gripe rocks
While writing Convictions, I thought some about the various ways Zorro has a bunch of decent cards that it uses badly. That's a post for another day, if ever, but among other things, I thought of the way Felipe's muteness is treated in "The Word" - that is to say, the show finds no problem with incorporating in the same ep the sentences, said by the same character: "A handicap doesn't have to be an impediment" and "if you let go of the past, I know that you can speak again." FFS, pick a moral and stick with it.
Which in turn reminded me of how much I hate that muteness so often in fiction is caused by trauma (and yes, I wrote a bunch of the examples on that site), because it means that a relatively moderate disability becomes This Tragic Thing: having it means the character is traumatized, being cured from it means the character is now well. It's significant that in the RL example I included on that site, Torey Hayden's Murphy's Boy, getting Kevin to speak is only an early part of the long, complicated struggle of getting him functional. Most of the fictional examples don't hide under tables, and yet OMGIT'SSOTRAGIC.
One fictional example of this, though, pretty much works for me, and it's Rosilda in Maria Gripe's Shadow series. English-speaking people, you're missing out, the books are available in Swedish and Spanish but not English. (Don't ask me why. Too much philosophy? Too much magical realism? Too genderbendy?) For you, and for others who haven't read the books (or seen the miniseries), a summary of Rosilda's arc (not spoiler cutting, because it's 23 years old and the Swedes who haven't read it probably aren't interested):
The whole family mess starts with (not in the novels themselves) the grandmother Clara de Leto, a narcissist who raises her daughter Lydia to be a "pure soul", making her completely neurotic in the process. Lydia grows up to marry cheerful soldier Maximilian, but his coarse ways upset her, and they split up. The twin children, Arild and Rosilda, resent Lydia for making their father leave. Clara is dead at this point, but Lydia thinks her mother's ghost is haunting them, which in combination with her failed family life drives her to suicide. (Or not quite... but we get to that.) Rosilda stops speaking, Arild becomes even more neurotic than his mother, and they grow up in the creepy old castle, haunted by their memories and possibly their relatives, and with only a bunch of servants to care for them.
At this point, the actual protagonists, Caroline (in disguise as Carl) and Berta enter the story, as companions for the twins - i.e. some normal young people for them to hang out with. For the purpose of this post, we can skip most of the plot and fast-forward to the bit where Berta discovers that Lydia is in fact alive and only pretended that the suicide attempt was succesful, so that she could flee the creepy castle and try to build a new life. She's still attached to the kids, though, and "haunts" the castle from time to time to look out for them. Not the most healthy situation.
Caught in a fire, Lydia's presence and living status is revealed, and Rosilda begins to speak again.
Now, why does this work for me when other examples don't? Several reasons:
1.Rosilda's muteness is not only tied to Lydia's death; it's implied that she's half-consciously imposing it on herself as a sort of punishment, both against herself for being mean to her mother, and against Lydia for deserting them through death. It makes sense for her to start speaking when her mother turns out to be alive.
2.Compared to her brother, and even to some other characters in the book, Rosilda is remarkably sane and happy, with her feet more or less on the ground (except when she doesn't want them to be). Yes, she has issues, but considering that she's stuck in magical realism with gothic overtones, it'd be stranger if she didn't.
3.In a strange way - and this is in line with the self-punishment - Rosilda is proud of her muteness. At one point in the books, she's sent to see some specialists, who claim that they can't cure her until she wants to be cured. Caroline and Berta discuss this between themselves, with Berta upset that Rosilda would "ruin her life" like this and Caroline pointing out that only Rosilda can decide whether it's a ruin or an improvement. Rosilda also keeps all the writing pads she uses, and boasts that her words don't disappear like other people's words do. She comes off rather as someone who's trying to hold on to her integrity, yet has such limited opportunities that this drastic method is the best she can do.
4.When she does start talking again, it doesn't cause any hallelujahs: She has found Lydia during the fire, right before the wall collapses, and is digging through the rubble crying, "Mommy, mommy, don't die!" Thus, when the others arrive, the first thoughts of Berta as the narrator are horror and concern for Lydia's safety - only later does she realize that Rosilda is talking again.
5.Rosilda is weirded out by her own adult voice and doesn't know what to do with it, occasionally even returning to her writing pads. This strikes me as a more credible reaction after a decade of silence than unmixed joy.
6.The situation at the castle is deeply unhealthy, and Rosilda's muteness is one of many symptoms of this. At the end of the third book, the characters are given a chance to reinvent themselves, with the castle burning, Lydia stepping up to take responsibility, Caroline revealing herself as a girl (and thus also showing the twins' crushes on her as being based on their own dreams and imaginations of the outer world), Berta finally not having to keep everybody's secrets - Rosilda is just one of many people being liberated.
7. And finally - magical realism with gothic overtones. :-) The books are full of symbols, intertextual echoes, and seamless blending of reality and melodrama, that Rosilda fits right into the genre. (I even half suspect that she knows this...)
Which in turn reminded me of how much I hate that muteness so often in fiction is caused by trauma (and yes, I wrote a bunch of the examples on that site), because it means that a relatively moderate disability becomes This Tragic Thing: having it means the character is traumatized, being cured from it means the character is now well. It's significant that in the RL example I included on that site, Torey Hayden's Murphy's Boy, getting Kevin to speak is only an early part of the long, complicated struggle of getting him functional. Most of the fictional examples don't hide under tables, and yet OMGIT'SSOTRAGIC.
One fictional example of this, though, pretty much works for me, and it's Rosilda in Maria Gripe's Shadow series. English-speaking people, you're missing out, the books are available in Swedish and Spanish but not English. (Don't ask me why. Too much philosophy? Too much magical realism? Too genderbendy?) For you, and for others who haven't read the books (or seen the miniseries), a summary of Rosilda's arc (not spoiler cutting, because it's 23 years old and the Swedes who haven't read it probably aren't interested):
The whole family mess starts with (not in the novels themselves) the grandmother Clara de Leto, a narcissist who raises her daughter Lydia to be a "pure soul", making her completely neurotic in the process. Lydia grows up to marry cheerful soldier Maximilian, but his coarse ways upset her, and they split up. The twin children, Arild and Rosilda, resent Lydia for making their father leave. Clara is dead at this point, but Lydia thinks her mother's ghost is haunting them, which in combination with her failed family life drives her to suicide. (Or not quite... but we get to that.) Rosilda stops speaking, Arild becomes even more neurotic than his mother, and they grow up in the creepy old castle, haunted by their memories and possibly their relatives, and with only a bunch of servants to care for them.
At this point, the actual protagonists, Caroline (in disguise as Carl) and Berta enter the story, as companions for the twins - i.e. some normal young people for them to hang out with. For the purpose of this post, we can skip most of the plot and fast-forward to the bit where Berta discovers that Lydia is in fact alive and only pretended that the suicide attempt was succesful, so that she could flee the creepy castle and try to build a new life. She's still attached to the kids, though, and "haunts" the castle from time to time to look out for them. Not the most healthy situation.
Caught in a fire, Lydia's presence and living status is revealed, and Rosilda begins to speak again.
Now, why does this work for me when other examples don't? Several reasons:
1.Rosilda's muteness is not only tied to Lydia's death; it's implied that she's half-consciously imposing it on herself as a sort of punishment, both against herself for being mean to her mother, and against Lydia for deserting them through death. It makes sense for her to start speaking when her mother turns out to be alive.
2.Compared to her brother, and even to some other characters in the book, Rosilda is remarkably sane and happy, with her feet more or less on the ground (except when she doesn't want them to be). Yes, she has issues, but considering that she's stuck in magical realism with gothic overtones, it'd be stranger if she didn't.
3.In a strange way - and this is in line with the self-punishment - Rosilda is proud of her muteness. At one point in the books, she's sent to see some specialists, who claim that they can't cure her until she wants to be cured. Caroline and Berta discuss this between themselves, with Berta upset that Rosilda would "ruin her life" like this and Caroline pointing out that only Rosilda can decide whether it's a ruin or an improvement. Rosilda also keeps all the writing pads she uses, and boasts that her words don't disappear like other people's words do. She comes off rather as someone who's trying to hold on to her integrity, yet has such limited opportunities that this drastic method is the best she can do.
4.When she does start talking again, it doesn't cause any hallelujahs: She has found Lydia during the fire, right before the wall collapses, and is digging through the rubble crying, "Mommy, mommy, don't die!" Thus, when the others arrive, the first thoughts of Berta as the narrator are horror and concern for Lydia's safety - only later does she realize that Rosilda is talking again.
5.Rosilda is weirded out by her own adult voice and doesn't know what to do with it, occasionally even returning to her writing pads. This strikes me as a more credible reaction after a decade of silence than unmixed joy.
6.The situation at the castle is deeply unhealthy, and Rosilda's muteness is one of many symptoms of this. At the end of the third book, the characters are given a chance to reinvent themselves, with the castle burning, Lydia stepping up to take responsibility, Caroline revealing herself as a girl (and thus also showing the twins' crushes on her as being based on their own dreams and imaginations of the outer world), Berta finally not having to keep everybody's secrets - Rosilda is just one of many people being liberated.
7. And finally - magical realism with gothic overtones. :-) The books are full of symbols, intertextual echoes, and seamless blending of reality and melodrama, that Rosilda fits right into the genre. (I even half suspect that she knows this...)