Document Type : Research article
Authors
1 Ph.D. Candidate of English Literature, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
2 Associate Professor of English Literature, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
3 Professor of English Literature, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
This article examines the intersection of gender and disability in The Glass Menagerie, a 1944 play by the acclaimed American dramatist Tennessee Williams, and the 2010 Iranian film adaptation Here Without Me, scripted and directed by Bahram Tavakoli. Disability studies refer to a relatively new discipline which seeks to investigate the variegated continuum of embodiment through cultural discourses that challenge the medical and scientific perceptions of disability. In the adapted film, compulsory able-bodiedness, the belief that perfect healthy bodies are the norm, while freakish, different, and disabled ones are deviations from the said norm, is seen on the screen countless times, a view established by the dominant culture of normalcy. As a site of intercultural transposition, the film re-contextualizes the intersection of gender and disability in contemporary Iran and hence throws some of the tacit assumptions regarding embodied experience into relief. Both the play and the film implicate fantasy as an implicit critique of normalcy.
Keywords
- Akbari, A. (2011, September 8). A personal impression of an open ending….
http://www.cinetmag.com/News/Show.asp?NewsID=66341111793143 - Babcock, G. (1999). The Glass Menagerie and the transformation of the subject. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 14(1), 17-36. https://journals.ku.edu/jdtc/article/view/3317
- Behdadi Mehr, N. (2011, August 15). Life on bubble.
http://www.cinetmag.com/News/Show.asp?NewsID=9067109786793 - Blackwell, L. (1970). Tennessee Williams and the predicament of women. South Atlantic Bulletin, 35(2), 9-14. https://doi.org/10.2307/3197002
- Bogle, J. E., & Shaul, S. L. (1981). Body image and the woman with a disability. In D. Bullard and S. Knight (Eds.), Sexuality and physical disability: Personal perspectives (pp. 91-95). Mosby.
- Browne, S., Connors, D., & Stern, N. (1985). With the Power of Each Breath. A disabled women's anthology. Cleis Press.
- Chivers, S. (2011). The silvering screen: Old age and disability in cinema. University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442686045
- Davis, L. J. (1999). Crips strike back: The rise of disability studies. American Literary History, 11(3), 500-512. https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/11.3.500
- Davis, L. J. (1995). Enforcing normalcy: Disability, deafness, and the body. Verso.
- Don, Z., Salami, A., Ghajarieh, A. (2015). Voices of girls with disabilities in rural Iran. Disability & Society 30 (6), 805-819. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2015.1052042
- Fischer, M. M. (2003). Iran: From religious dispute to revolution. University of Wisconsin Press.
- Fomeshi, B. M. (2013). Tom Wingfield's Alienation in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie: A Marxist Approach. kata, 15(1), 25-32. https://doi.org/10.9744/kata.15.1.25-32
- Fraser, B. (Ed.). (2016). Cultures of Representation: Disability in world cinema contexts. Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/fras17748
- Garland-Thompson, R. (2005). Feminist disability studies. Signs: Journal of women in Culture and Society, 30(2), 1557-1587. https://doi.org/10.1086/423352
- Ghandeharioon, A. & Anushiravani, A. (2013). New comparative literature and literary adaptation: The glass menagerie and Tavakoli’s Here Without Me. Nashriyeh Adabiat-e Tatbighi, (7), 10-43. https://www.noormags.ir/view/fa/articlepage/1050432
- Greenfield, T. A. (1998). The Glass Menagerie as Social Commentary. In T. Siebold (Ed.), Readings on The Glass Menagerie (pp. 73-79). Greenhaven Press.
- Hanna, W. J., & Rogovsky, B. (1991). Women with disabilities: Two handicaps plus. Disability, Handicap & Society, 6(1), 49-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/02674649166780041
- Hoeksema, T. B., & Smit, C. R. (2001). The fusion of film studies and disability studies. In C. R. Smith and A. Enns (Eds.), Screening disability: Essays on cinema and disability (pp. 33-43). University Press of America.
- Holman, R. (2016). Leprosy and the dialectical body in Forugh Farrokhzad’s The House is Black. In B. Fraser (Ed.), Cultures of representation: Disability in world cinema contexts (pp. 247-262). Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/fras17748-019
- Hooper, M. S. (2012). Sexual politics in the work of Tennessee Williams: Desire over protest. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139058469
- Javadi Motlagh, P. (1991). Women in political discourses of twentieth century Iran [Doctoral dissertation, University of London]
- Kent, D. (1988). In search of a heroine: Images of women with disabilities in fiction and drama. In M. Fine and A. Asch (Eds.), Women with disabilities: Essays in psychology, culture, and politics (pp. 90-110), Temple University Press.
- Khanipour, H. (2011, August 8). Here without me, the most bitter sweet film.
http://sinama-hl.blogfa.com/post/208 - Longmore, P. K. (2003). Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability. Temple University Press.
- McRuer, R. (2006). Crip theory: Cultural signs of queerness and disability (Vol. 9). NYU press.
- Moharrami, J. (2012). A successful adaptation of an admired play.
https://cinemaandishe.persianblog.ir/3MrrYEo6DdiDDD8EwjOK - Naficy, H. (2011). A social history of Iranian cinema: The globalizing era, 1984–2010 (Vol. 4). University Press.
- Nalliveettil, G. M., & Gadallah, M. S. M. (2016). Discourse Analysis of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 7(3), 201-210. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.7n.3p.201
- Norden, M. F. (1994). The cinema of isolation: A history of physical disability in the movies. Rutgers University Press.
- Samuels, E. (2002). Critical divides: Judith Butler’s theory and the question of disability. NWSA Journal, 14(3), 58-76. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316924
- Tavakoli, B. (Director). 2010, Here without me [film]. Iran.
- Wendell, S. (1996). The rejected body: Feminist philosophical reflections on disability. Routledge.
- Williams, T. (1999). The Glass Menagerie. New Direction Books.
)