Harriet Martineau and Deafness

While her writing on issues of disability tends to seek the ‘truth’ that her utilitarianism inspires her to explore and to convey this to wider society, it must be read not only as educational and remote from the author and her lived experience, but influenced by it, in doing so she uses the lemons life gave her and helps make a societal lemonade for other to consume. She writes about anecdotal experiences in passing and how this informs how she navigates the able bodied world in order to ‘pass’ and be socially accepted. In doing so, she acknowledges that deafness creates a sense of ‘otherness’

“(From how much would a few more such words have saved me?) He had dined in company with an elderly single lady, –  a sort of provincial blue-stocking in her time,  – who was growing deaf, rapidly, and so sorely against her will that she tried to ignore the fact to the last possible moment. Ar that dinner-party, this lady sat next her old acquaintances, William Taylor of Norwich, who never knew vert week how to deal with ladies (except, to his honour be it spoken, his blind mother 😉 and Miss N – teased him to tell her all that everybody said till he grew quite testy and rude. My brother told me, with tenderness in his voice, that he thought of me while blushing, as everybody present did, for Miss N – ; and that he hoped that if i ever should grow as deaf as she, i should never be seen making myself so irksome and absurd. this helped me to a resolution which i made and never broke,  – never to ask what was said.” [1]

It was clear from this anecdote, that the mere shared experience of hearing impairment painted some people to have shared qualities, and ignored that while there are shared experiences, disabled people are individuals, with different life experiences and personalities. The sense of otherness is clear, and although Harriet herself is seen as ‘other’, there is a hope that she wont fall into the graces and manners of the ‘others’ to whom she is associated for she would be deemed, irksome and absurd’. For many such an anecdote might seem harmless enough, but it helped to reinforce certain social expectations into Harriet that were a result of her disability, and she resolved to never ask what was said if she was unsure because she would be associated with what was viewed as socially unacceptable. In this way she adapted that particular behaviour to fit within an able bodied society, instead of society adapting around her needs. This reinforces the prejudices and generalisation of disabled people not only during this era, but more generally even into modern times. Bad manners, or behaviours deemed as undesirable as a result of disability were perhaps associated with the period of enlightenment, which viewed disability as an evolutionary throwback, and so conforming to societies evolutionary standard meant that a person was less likely to be viewed as less than, or somehow less ‘human’ or evolved as those who were able bodied.

Harriet was aware of her dual identity as a woman and as an invalid, and how each identity placed her at a disadvantage due to societal expectations under the patriarchy. Hew awareness of these marginalised roles and her need to make her writing appeal to a wide audience shaped how she wrote throughout her career, and is reflected in writing such as Letter to the Deaf (1834). In this letter she sets out instructions and advice for the deaf read on how to manage their disability. While she appears to give a tone of not caring for the reactions of able bodied readers, “ those who do not belong to our fraternity,”[2] it doesn’t exclude them from the writing, by encouraging the able bodied hearing reader to take a more pragmatic approach to deafness.

Overall, Harriet’s lived experience of disability was reflected in her writing, but also her activism. Thankfully, she was constantly reflective about her own life and privilege and used her autobiography to recount her life, but also to educate those about the reality of life with a disability and the issues that arose due to society from it. For example, Harriet believed that her own level of education was only thanks to having discovered her hearing loss during her teens, and that had it been earlier in her life, she would not have enjoyed the education and success that she had because of the institutional structures in the education system,

“I have never seen a deaf child’s education well managed at home, or at an ordinary school. it does not seem to be ever considered by the parents or teachers how much more is learned by oral intercourse than in any other way; and, for what of this consideration, they did too late, and to their consternation, that the deaf pupil turns out deficient in sense, in manners, and in the knowledge of things so ordinary that they seem to be matters of instinct rather than information. [3]

Harriet’s relationship with her deafness is complex, multi layered and at times, seemingly full of contradictions. While she challenges many social norms of her period, she also adheres to and conforms to certain others, such as refusing to ask what was said in order to not be ‘irksome’. This strange dichotomy of her breaking social norms and conforming to them can be seen when she considers her disability to be a special duty, in which she is not to annoy or fatigue able bodied people due to having to interact with her, but to also try and maintain and remember what it is like to be able bodied,

“The redeeming quality of personal infirmity is that it brings its special duty with it; but this privilege waits long to be recognised. The special duty of the deaf is, in the first place, to spare other people as much fatigue as possible; and, in the next, to preserve their own natural capacity for sound, and habit of receiving it, and true memory of it, as long as possible.”[4]

While she may appear to embrace her deafness, she was reluctant to do so initially, and described a ‘false shame’ that came from her deafness, the use of the word false suggests that she isn’t ashamed and is embracing her disability, however, she later elaborates that she isn’t ashamed because she has discovered her duty to make able bodied people not be uncomfortable around her ‘otherness’.

“I ought undoubtedly to have begun at that time to use a trumpet; but no one pressed it upon me; and I do not know that, if urged, I should have yielded; for I had abundance of that false shame which hinders nine deaf people out of ten from doing their duty in that particular.” [5]

Her ‘false shame’ is more likely to be a ‘false pride’ because her pride is not in who she is, but how she can serve able bodied people, make them comfortable and conform to society. It is a strange hypocrisy given how outspoken she was for numerous marginalised groups; she was anti slavery, pro suffrage for women. However, her social justice work seems to only have partially translated over into disability, despite her lived experience.

While her writing was educational and insightful into lived experience of deafness, it could also be problematic, because while she is aware that it is hard for an able bodied person to understand what it is like to live with a disability, she seems to consider it her duty to correct others who are deaf to ensure they meet social standards,

“I have felt myself qualified to say more in the way of exhortation and remonstrance to deaf people than could be said by anyone who had not only never been deaf, but had never shared the selfish and morbid feelings which are the ordinary attendant curses of suffering so absolutely peculiar as that of personal infirmity.” [6]

Everything Harriet writes in regards to disability, gender or anything that could challenge the social expectations of the period are tempered with a slight hesitance to truly rebel against them, and she seems to challenge while also conform at the same time, creating a paradoxical text which seems on reflection to shine a spot light on her own inner turmoil with her identity as a deaf woman.

[1] Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau’s autobiography / with memorials by Maria Weston Chapman. Vol. 1., ed. by Maria Weston Chapman, 2nd edn (London: Smith, Elder & Co. , 1877). (p.73)

[2] LETTER TO THE DEAF. Martineau, Harriet Tait’s Edinburgh magazine; Apr 1834; British Periodicals pg. 174

[3] Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau’s autobiography / with memorials by Maria Weston Chapman. Vol. 1., ed. by Maria Weston Chapman, 2nd edn (London: Smith, Elder & Co. , 1877). (p.73)

[4] Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau’s autobiography / with memorials by Maria Weston Chapman. Vol. 1., ed. by Maria Weston Chapman, 2nd edn (London: Smith, Elder & Co. , 1877). (p.140)

[5] Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau’s autobiography / with memorials by Maria Weston Chapman. Vol. 1., ed. by Maria Weston Chapman, 2nd edn (London: Smith, Elder & Co. , 1877). (p.140)

[6] Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau’s autobiography / with memorials by Maria Weston Chapman. Vol. 1., ed. by Maria Weston Chapman, 2nd edn (London: Smith, Elder & Co. , 1877). (p.140)