Date of Award
Fall 2025
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Department
English Language and Literatures
First Advisor
Anthony Jarrells
Abstract
This dissertation examines the representation of invisible disability and neurodivergence in nineteenth-century British literature, arguing that literary texts both reflect and shape cultural understandings of disability. While much scholarship has focused on visible or physical impairments in Victorian fiction, comparatively little attention has been given to characters whose behaviors, emotions, or identities align with what today might be described as neurodivergence.
Drawing on Disability Studies, Mad Studies, and cultural theory, I propose the concept of cultural Diagnosis as a framework for analyzing how fictional characters become “Diagnosable” within both their historical and contemporary cultural contexts. Through close readings of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this project identifies recurring tropes of misdiagnosis, monstrosity, and mythic disability. Chapter One explores Holmes as a culturally Diagnosable figure, particularly in relation to modern understandings of ADHD and neurodivergence. Chapter Two reinterprets Frankenstein’s Creature as a representation of trauma and complex PTSD, challenging assumptions that link disability with violence. Chapter Three introduces the trope of mythic disability through the figure of Bertha Mason, who is rendered monstrous and mythological in ways that erase her subjectivity. Chapter Four analyzes Stevenson’s depiction of Jekyll and Hyde as a form of collage disability, illustrating how diagnostic patchworks and stereotypes shape cultural scripts about mental illness. Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates that literary narratives have long functioned as cultural tools of Diagnosis, establishing expectations for how disability “should” appear and be understood. By re-reading these canonical texts through a disability studies lens, I argue that representation is not neutral but deeply consequential: it influences cultural attitudes, medical practices, and the lived experiences of Disabled and neurodivergent people. In offering new terms such as cultural Diagnosis, mythic disability, and collage disability, this project provides a blueprint for recognizing and reimagining invisible disabilities in literature. It invites both scholars and communities to reconsider how stories continue to define—and redefine—the boundaries of human difference.
Rights
© 2025, Victoria Elizabeth Kuykendall
Recommended Citation
Kuykendall, V. E.(2025). Cultural Diagnosis and the Monsters of Victorian England. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/8636