The Romanticizing Reality of Parkinson’s Disease in Kinnell's Poetry M Callaway College

“Parkinson’s Disease” by Galway Kinnell was originally published in 1994 in his collection of poems titled Imperfect Thirst. This poem describes a man with Parkinson’s Disease who is being cared for presumably by his adult daughter—the whole poem concentrates on one scene where the daughter helps feed her father and assist him to and from the bathroom. While Kinnell’s poem offers a sympathetic portrayal of disability, we can still ask, is the poem about disability portrayal, a parent-child relationship, or an obstacle that an individual needs to overcome? In Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse, David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder provide us a framework to answer these questions. They provide us with several common tropes to help us identity how the narrative portrays the disabled, among these tropes include romanticized images of the disabled or what some call “disabled heroism” (Mitchell and Snyder 23). Simply put, Mitchell and Snyder assist readers in recognizing how a text classifies the disabled, either negatively or positively. Through the portrayal of disability in “Parkinson’s Disease,” Kinnell’s poem affirms the stark reality of disability, but seems to simultaneously romanticize...