Exposed bodies in spite of all. Notes for an archeology of disgraced images of anomaly and disability in literature

Abstract

This article presents a revision of some disgraced images of the
anomalies and disabilities in some works of western and Latin American
literature. My interest centers upon an archeology of those images and bodies
that pervade in words and establish a dialogue from their orphan state: silenced
bodies, secondary bodies, characters not once problematized. Images of bodies
impoverished by a paternalistic view and used as narrative devices which,
through sense, resist a total disappearance. I’d like to test my critical approach
by open and resistant scrutiny in the name of those banished bodies in the
western imagination which can be held as potent images. These have always
existed side by side with the epic and spotless image of incorruptible bodies
embodying power: the national body, the civilizing hero, the doctor, the heir of
the dynasty, the chief.