Reading a Novel, <i>Speechless</i>: Becoming Harriet, a Girl with Cerebral Palsy; through the Lens of Irritation and Nussbaum's Capabilities

Abstract

This article offers a reading of Kate Darbishire's novel Speechless Stickhouse Publishing, London, 2018), following Harriet, a girl with cerebral palsy. It examines her irritation, born of her resentful awareness of her disability, as well as how she grapples with her life as an ordinary schoolgirl. The novel presents Harriet as an everyday child, no more heroic than her peers for her struggles and no less dignified for them, either. The interpretation implements Martha Nussbaum's study of capabilities and disabilities in relation to reading the novel. Her broad assertions of universal qualities that must be native to all humans frames the reading of Harriet. These capabilities manifest in Harriet's judgemental criticisms of what she observes and feels. This work suggests that they afford her the same growth in maturity as other people, closing the novel with an expanded human understanding, as seen in her acceptance of an unseen sibling.