Representation of Asperger Syndrome in Contemporary Fiction

Abstract

In this thesis address the issue of how point of view and narrative voice within The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon 2003), and Mockingbird (Kathryn Erskine 2010) relate to the theoretical models of disability studies. As the analysis will prove, the effect of narrative strategies in the novels serves to underline some of the current challenges within the field of disability studies. Through the literary analysis of the novels, I argue that the two novels describe disability as a socially constructed category, using AS as the example that proves how the category is fundamentally unstable. The category of “disabled” is in fact disabled in itself. The didactic work considers how the core curriculum suggest education about people with other capacities than those of the majority, while also specifying that education should provide training in cooperation with people that have capacities that differs from those of the majority. The focus of the didactic work is to argue of why specific education dealing with disability is important, while also briefly outlining how one could use cooperative learning as a didactical method to include people with AS in ordinary education, and as a method to teach neurotypical pupils about AS.