The Conversion Narrative in Autism Lit
Parent memoirs about raising their autistic children—such as (to name a very few) Charlotte Moore’s George and Sam: Two Boys, One Family, and Autism, Clara Claiborne Park’s The Siege: A Family’s Journey Into the World of an Autistic Child and Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter’s Life with Autism, Ralph Savarese’s Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption: On the Meaning of Family and the Politics of Neurological Difference—all contain certain elements.
A child is born, “something is not right” about the child; a child is diagnosed. The parent finds her or himself in a state of supreme ignorance about how to help the child. The parent gradually—sometimes in a flash of revelation—finds ways to help the child. The child learns; the child changes; various setbacks occur; the parent fights on. The experience of raising an autistic child and of seeking to understand autism evokes a change—sometimes spiritual, sometimes profound and life-changing—on the parent.
The genre of the conversion narrative—”the narrative of a subject in search of a transformed or redeemed ’self’”—can be applied to many such memoirs about raising an autistic child and, too (I think), to more than a few works of “autism lit.” From a paper entitled No Search No Subject? Autism and the American Conversion Narrative by my husband, Jim Fisher:
The best-known literature treating autism in the United States is rooted in the genre of conversion narrative. This is easy to miss because the conversion narrative is so ubiquitous in American culture as to be virtually normative: that is, the narrative of a subject in search of a transformed or redeemed “self” is such a dominant motif in the American idiom that we scarcely pause to contemplate the historical origins of the genre in colonial-era Protestant narratives of spiritual conversion, or its many subsequent permutations in classic American literature. Since autism is widely understood as at least in part a disorder of “selfhood,” the notion of autism literature-as-conversion-narrative threatens to unsettle the conventions of the genre. If autistic persons fail to conform to expectations attached to notions of the developing, disclosing, searching self, their presence constitutes a kind of scandal in a culture where the “subject in search of self” is virtually synonymous with “that which makes us human.” A practice of literary interventions has sought to make autism safe for this dominant if largely unexamined tradition, often at great cost to actual autistic persons. The search for the autistic “subject in search of self,” in fact, reveals much more about the broader culture than about autism.
Jim’s paper on No Search No Subject? Autism and the American Conversion Narrative was presented at a conference on Autism and Representation held on October 28-30, 2005, at Case Western University and can be read here; I will be referring to the “conversion narrative” in future posts on autism lit (I am reading one right now).
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POSTED IN: Autism Lit, Books, Diagnosis, Education, Family, Parenting, Psychiatry, Psychology, Religion, Treatment
6 opinions for The Conversion Narrative in Autism Lit
mcewen
Dec 23, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Sounds a bit formulaic when you put it like that. I’m certainly not keen on the ‘how we struggled but overcame’ genre, which seems prevalent, but perhaps that’s because I’m biased against ‘happy endings.’
Cheers
Gerard Petillo
Dec 23, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Personally, I think we struggle to understand and adapt. We overcome when we accept autism and accept that it is life long journey and do everything we can to make our loved ones reach their full potential.
I see some parents that have not accepted it and are still struggling.
Gerard Petillo
Parents of A.N.G.E.L.S.
Bronx N.Y.
Lisa/Jedi
Dec 23, 2006 at 11:29 pm
This is an interesting topic… & brings to mind is the tension between what a family expects of the object of all their efforts (their autistic family member) & what that family member may feel about these efforts. I will admit that I have stayed away from much of the “autism lit”, but I can relate to the classic theme of conversion. My archetype for this sort of family narrative is my favourite tween-years book, “Karen” by Marie Killilea, the story of a family raising a child with cerebral palsy in the 1940’s & 50’s. This book not only inspired me to volunteer for our local UCP chapter from the ages of 12-18 (& later was employed by UCP in various capacities) but the Killilea’s family’s efforts to counter society’s perceptions of disabled people affected me deeply. Their modelling, & my own experiences as a disabled person, are probably what has influenced me to change myself & my perceptions of my kid, rather than expect him to be “cured”, “recovered”, or pass as NT. I can also relate to the conversion experience from the perspective taking what I am learning about autism, both real-life learning & what I read, combining it with what I believe, & arriving at a way of thinking & living that is consistent with my ethical beliefs. It takes a lot of thinking & rethinking to do this- for example, being aware of the effect that “fighting” terminology has on us as humans & then intentionally deciding not to use these words & images & replacing them with something consistent with our beliefs. I think we are a happier family for being aware of these issues & trying to live with intention, rather than at the whims of the way society perceives autism.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Dec 24, 2006 at 3:51 am
Yes it is a bit “formulaic”—-and what gets interesting is when writers diverge from the formula……. knowingly or not.
“The front and centre of my change of attitude to life”
Mar 1, 2008 at 7:29 pm
[…] by the experience of raising and teaching an autistic child and Awad’s story is indeed a story of conversion and, too, of redemption and change. Tags: adelaide, asd, asperger, autism, biker gang, conversion, […]
More Thoughts on Recovery After an Interview
Jul 2, 2008 at 4:40 am
[…] New York and it’d been awhile since some topics had come up, such as Jim’s work on the conversion narrative in autism literature (more about that in this book on autism and representation). Jim just taught a […]
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