![]() ![]() ![]() Social, political, and religious institutions have played an important role in determining how we as a society classify bodies as “normal” and “abnormal.” These institutions are classified as the “cognitive authority,” as “onceptualizations of disability are influenced by professional organizations and individuals who have the power or authority to establish definitions in society and are in command over the knowledge within a particular field” (Haegele and Hodge 193). I believe that both Booth’s and Riggan’s classifications for the unreliable narrator represent a problematic and ableist view of disability and that their privilege and power as academics upholds ableist views as members of the “cognitive authority.” An awareness of these models can also aid in readings of disability narratives and can help readers determine how a narrator meets the criteria for being unreliable. These two models can give scholars a better understanding of the medicalization of disability as well as the lived experiences of individuals with impairments. Critical disability studies are historically divided into two major models: the medical model and social model. It is important to understand the different models of disability when speaking of disability in narration. I argue this perspective through an example of one of the narrators in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. However, a reading of these “madman” narrators through the lens of the social model of disability studies greatly impacts how the reader considers these narrators as “unreliable,” and ultimately questions how readers determine who is a “madman” and who is “sane.” As Michael Bérubé states, “disability demands a story” (43). One of these classifications of the “unreliable” narrator is that of the “madman,” a narrator who suffers from a severe mental illness, and this impairment hinders the narrator’s ability to tell their story correctly (Riggan 133). Each of these “unreliable” narrators are categorized based on the underlying rationalization of their thoughts and actions these are divided into four categories as defined by Riggan (1981). In several cases, scholars and readers alike deem these narrators as “unreliable,” based on many different criteria within these stories that readers define as “true” or “factual.” Many scholars and readers take pleasure in scrutinizing the thoughts and actions of these narrators and evaluating what is in fact “true” within these sorts of narrations. The manner in which first-person narrators tell the reader their stories greatly impacts whether or not the reader views these narrators as trustworthy and reliable. ![]()
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