Scholarly record

THE IMAGE OF THE “OTHER” GIRL IN AUDUR AVA OLAFSDOTTIR’S NOVEL “RAISED EARTH”

O. Kovzele, I. Laha

Abstract

Disability studies as an independent branch of social sciences and humanities was established and initially developed in English-speaking countries (the USA, Great Britain, Canada) and at the end of the 20th century coincided with the contemporary topicalities of sociology, philosophy, feminism, post-structural criticism and the theory of national minorities (this issue has been considered from various perspectives by Miles Beauchamp, Wendy Chung, Alijandra Mogilner, Ashutosh Singh, Viktorija Sukovataja, Svetlana Zakinova, and many others). In the center of the studies is the individual having long-term physical or mental impairments that hinder their full inclusion into socially significant processes. The goal of disability studies is to change the collective opinion about “the other” that has developed under the influence of mass-positioned norms and accepted standards by addressing “the narrative of the body” constructed by the society, direct manifestations of which are observable in cartoons, cinematography, advertising, and fiction. Modern Scandinavian authors (Einar Mar Gudmundson, Unni Drouge, etc.) increasingly often turn their attention to people who, for one or another reason (trauma, illness, genetic disease), do not comply with the standards that are conventionally accepted in the society and the established norms. The writers address many themes that have so far been suppressed (gender and sexual identity, the homeless, drugs, violence, physical and mental impairments, etc.), which are particularly topical in the present conditions of globalization and technocracy. The object of the research is the debut novel by Icelandic writer and art historian Audur Ava Olafsdottir (Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir; born in 1958) “Raised Earth” (“Upphækkuð jörð”; 1998) and the specificity of representation of the “other”. The main character of the novel Augustine is a girl left alone already in her early childhood because of the inborn trauma of her legs and her mother’s frivolous character (according to Christine Wilkie-Stibbs’ conception – “erased person”); Augustine makes desperate efforts to prove her rights to self-fulfillment and individual growth. The axiom “the legless are doomed”, so obvious for the society, contradicts girl’s inner life and the logic of her world perception. She is multi-talented and, notwithstanding the physical isolation, she constantly searches and finds alternative spaces for meditation: the rhubarb garden (a self-identity space), the seaside (the dialogue with God), and, finally, the top of the Mountain (climbing as the greatest daring implemented by the girl). Thus, on the one hand, “Raised Earth”, is to be considered the proof of the ability “to look beyond the horizon” vitally important for Islanders, and, on the other hand, it is a peculiar deconstruction of the myth about the fragility and passiveness of people with reduced mobility. The research methods: biographical, structural-semiotic.

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