Disability and Its Representation in Literature: An Analysis of Three Anecdotes from Rumi’s Masnavi-ye-Ma’navi in the Light of the Concept of “Narrative Prosthesis”

Disability studies is one of the most recent trends in literary theory and criticism which tries to analyze the representations of disability in literary works. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder are disability scholars who coined the famous concept “narrative prosthesis” in order to provide an academic framework to address the stereotypical representations of disability in art and literature. They contend that disabled characters can be traced in many different literary works throughout history, but they are mostly given symbolic and metaphoric roles. That is, the representation of the disabled has for the most part failed to depict their lived experiences and is in fact a vehicle to communicate something to the audience about non-disabled subjects and the ableist society. This paper analyzes “narrative prosthesis” and enumerates some of its examples in the western literature and culture. Then, it applies the concept to three anecdotes from Rumi’s Masnavi-ye-Ma’navi. The results of the story show that disabled characters are not the main subjects of the anecdotes, but are instruments in the hands of the narratives to further their plots; as a result, no major improvement can be traced in the positions of the disabled characters as peripheral figures.