Resumen de Writing and Adapting Disability: Galdós’ Marianela and Pablo Messiez’s Los ojos
Drawing on David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder’s concept of narrative prosthesis to refer to both the pervasive presence of disability in mainstream discourse and the conventions used to represent it, this article compares how disability is handled in Benito Pérez Galdós’ novel, Marianela and in its theatrical adaptation, Los ojos, by the Argentinian playwright Pablo Messiez. In his novel Galdós seemingly follows the typical pattern of representing disability through his curing of Pablo’s blindness, but then he subverts that pattern by using Marianela’s death and burial to draw attention to the artificiality of the conventions aimed at eliminating disability from narratives. In his adaptation, Messiez shifts the focus from disability to nationality, transforming Nela and her mother into Argentine immigrants living in Spain. Through them he exposes the Otherness experienced by immigrants which marginalizes them, and he undermines the stigma of foreignness by redefining the concept of national identity. In so doing, however, Messiez eliminates Galdós’ challenge to mainstream representations of disability, allowing his play to follow the standard pattern identified by Mitchell and Snyder.
