Challenging the ‘Normal’: A Study of Representation of Disability in Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts

Abstract

Science fiction is known to play with the potentialities of science, technology, and medicine, thus opening up a space for exploring how humans construct themselves. It is a potential genre that can challenge stereotypes and create alternative realities along with projecting contemporary social norms, cultural attitudes, and the ideals of the body. Science fiction emerges as a medium to explore the normative understandings of the body and gender. An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon is a science fiction about the lives of people travelling in a spaceship searching for a habitable planet like Earth. This paper attempts to trace and evaluate the representation of disability in An Unkindness of Ghosts to understand how it blurs the distinction between abled and disabled characters and thereby challenges the concept of normalcy. The study investigates how the intersection of race and gender oppresses and stigmatises disabled bodies.