AustLit

Despite substantial literary and onscreen depictions of disabled men, there remains a dearth of scholarly critique regarding these representations. In this chapter, I analyse the negotiation of disability and masculinity in Alan Marshall’s first autobiographical novel I Can Jump Puddles (1955). Through adapting the work of Ghassan Hage (2010) on modes of interpellation of the racialised subject, this chapter examines how the disabled male subject is mis-interpellated, and how these interpellations are resisted. I contend that it is through mis-interpellation by hegemonic masculinity, and resulting negative interpellations, that Alan, the disabled male subject in Marshall’s novel, finds himself on the outskirts of masculine subjectivities. This chapter demonstrates Marshall’s complex representation of the relationship between disability and masculinity within an Australian context.

(Source: Springer)