Visual impairment creativity fulfilment contextualizing select autobiographies and memoirs

Abstract

The thesis submitted to the University of Calicut titled *Visual Imparement, Creativity & Fulfilment: Contextualizing Select Autobiographies and Memairs’ by Akbar C, under the supervision of Dr. A. 1. Vilayathullah examines the selected autobiographies of the visually impaired, focusing on areas such as creativity, aesthetics and perception of blindness in the selected texts and fulfillment of the concerned authors in their personal life tackling the limitations caused by their impairment. The thesis statement of the study is: Visual impairment can stimulate a wide variety of textual responses in a writer, which could be aesthetic, philosophical, psychological, emotional, political, or cultural depending on his or her degree of impairment, education, familial environment, external support, awareness, and above all the creative imagination that he or she relies on to overcome the loss and tackle the obstacles. The major texts selected for the present study are, The Story of My Life (1903) and The World I Live in and Optimism: A Collection of Essays (2009) by Helen Keller, Face to Face: An Autobiography (1957) and All for Love (2001) by Ved Mehta, If You Could See What I Hear (1989) by Tom Sullivan, On Sight and Insight: A Journey into the World of Blindness (1997) by Professor John M. Hull, Taking Hold: My Journey into Blindness (1994) and On my Own: The Journey Continues (1997) by Sally Hobart Alexander, Planet of the Blind (1998) and Eavesdropping: A Life by Ear (2006) by Stephen Kuusisto and Sight Unseen (1999) by Georgina Kleege. The whole thesis is divided in to 5 chapters. The first introductory chapter presents the structural design of the thesis, states its main objectives, explains the research gap and analyzes the available resources. The second chapter titled ‘The World of Blindness and the World of Letters: Visual Impairment, Autobiographies and Creativity’ focuses on the areas of autoblographles Disability SlUdleS A conceptual, technical and historical examination of blindness and the relatlonshlp between blindness and creativity. The researcher observes that among the selected authors, Helen Keller, Professor John M. Hull and Stephen Kuusisto emplay a highly distinguished language to represent their own experiences of blindness, Whereas, Tom Sullivan, Sally Hobart Alexander and Ved Mchta compose their texts in a general language accentuating the practical nuances of blindness. Georgina Kleege subtly shifls between these subjective ruminations and practical observations. Sufficient passages from the selected texts are quoted to substantiate this argument. The third chapter titled 'From the Visual to the Multisensory World: The Aesthetic and Perceptive Realms of the Texts' emphasizes the areas of aesthetics and perception of blindness by different authors. Sensory hierarchies of different authors and their subjective understandings on blindness are analyzed. Helen Keller, Professor John M. Hull, Georgina Kleege and for a certain extent Stephen Kuusisto present their own aesthetics of blindness in their autobiographies. They rely on senses other than sight or move from the visual to a multisensory paradigm to become successful in life. The others focus more on the practical realities of blindness with occasional subjective contemplations. The fourth chapter, ‘In the Innermost Corridor: The Personal Life of the Authors and their Prospects of Fulfillment’ discusses the personal life of the concerned authors concentrating the areas such as the nature of impairment and immediate reaction to it, social and familial life, marriage family and sexuality, strategies to overcome the hurdles created by the impairment and the prospects of fulfillment in their personal and social life transgressing their impairment. Major events in the life of each author are surveyed for this analysis. In the 5th and final chapter, major findings of the research are summarized while listing the important challenges and the adopted solutions to tackle such issues. Noteworthy directions for the future research are also provided. The study is concluded citing the major primary and secondary resources used.