Winch states,
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace are indebted to their reading of Malthus for insight into the mechanisms underlying natural selection ... thereby setting on foot a complex interchange of ideas between the social and biological sciences.' (Winch 1987, 7)
Winch's phrase, "a complex interchange of ideas" is an appropriate description of
the difficulties encountered in discussing disabled people's representation in fiction. Thomas Malthus was concerned with the eradication of "surplus population" before the term eugenics was coined. Charles Dickens reacted to Malthus' concepts by satirizing them in many of his novels. One particular point of Malthus regarding "surplus population" was attacked by Dickens in A Christmas Carol
This dissertation has shown a connection between writers of fiction and the ideals of eugenics. HG Well, Benjamin Kidd and G.B. Shaw supported the idea and attended talks given by Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics. Modernist writers' attitudes have been discussed, especially the pro-eugenics stand taken by writers such as Lawrence, Woolf and Huxley and the anti-eugenics view of G. K. Chesterton when he opposed the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. The controversy around the eugenics idea has been examined and I have shown that many prominent writers of the realist and modernist schools took a keen interest in its principles. This interest has been reflected in their work. In Brave New World Huxley attempts to predict the disastrous consequences of taking the eugenics idea too far by satirizing a vision of Utopia.
Activists are by their nature serious and it could be argued that texts are occasionally read by political activists such as the feminist or disablist lobbies without taking in to account the writers' sense of playfulness. According to Childs, Huxley was, "As much a eugenist as his brother" (Childs 2001, 11). With this is mind, I suggest that Huxley celebrates eugenics by warning of its dangers.
The "euthanasia" murders of thousands of mentally and physically disabled people carried out by the Nazis under Hitler's rule marked a significant change for supporters of eugenics. The Nazi dictator has demonstrated the horrors that may be performed under the auspices of "breeding to improve human stock". As a result, support for the idea has been quieter but not completely silenced
Angela Carter in The Passion Of New Eve shows that advances in medical science should be examined with great care. She uses disability and deformity to demonstrate the kinds of changes that can be effected upon people. I have suggested that one of her disabled characters, Zero, was being used by Carter as an ironic look at the "male gaze" in film theory.
A continued problem with the principles of eugenics is perception and knowledge. Whereas, in the past, people with epilepsy for example were regarded as feeble-minded, nowadays, improved understanding and more effective medication have helped to disprove this so-called "fact".
Genetic technology, such as the mapping of the human genome, means that cures for life-threatening heredity conditions are possible, however as Paul states,
A history of eugenics that is sensitive to its complexities alerts us to the fact that genetic technologies present more than one kind of danger and that ... we may avoid one only to court another. (Paul 1995, 135)
The mass-media is now the main source of information as far as much of the general public is concerned, but literature is still important. It is hoped that novelists will be partly instrumental in putting an end to the discrimination against people with disabilities by continuing to take responsibility for their portrayal. It is also hoped that activists in the anti-disablist movement will view representations of people with disabilities objectively and regard their portrayal in some cases as a criticism of attitudes to disabled people in society and not necessarily the authors' personal prejudices.
