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From Freak Show to Charity Case

The Containment of Deafness in Wilkie Collinss
Hide and Seek
Hannah Anglin-Jaffe
University of Exeter
From Freak Show to Charity Case

The article explores the representation of deafness, and in particular the deaf character
Madonna/Mary, in Wilkie Collinss nineteenth-century novel Hide and Seek. The argument
is that Madonnas rescue from a circus and adoption into the safety of a middle-class home
transforms her from freak show into charity case through a discourse of paternalism.
This process of containment parallels wider transitions in how deafness was understood
socially in the late nineteenth century. Drawing on the history of deaf education and using
Foucaults concepts of emergence and confinement, the article argues that this mirrors the
transition from manual to oralist approaches to deaf education in this period.

The novel Hide and Seek by Wilkie Collins offers the opportunity to explore the
representation of deafness in the nineteenth-century British novel. The novel
features a deaf heroine, Madonna/Mary, and imagines in detail the experience
of deafness. I interpret the novel through the lens of deaf studies in order to
offer a new reading of this neglected text. In particular I am interested in how
the portrayal of Madonna compares to preceding and succeeding models of
deafness. I explore the interplay of ideas about deafness and disability, building
on theorists such as Lennard Davis, Martha Stoddard Holmes, David Mitchell,
David Bolt, and Tom Shakespeare, who have argued that disability and
deafness are culturally constructed rather than self-evident representations of
reality. As Julia Rodas has argued,
the presence of disability in Victorian fiction indicates more than a mere reflection
of actual disabled persons in the culture. It points also to an underlying anxiety
and ambivalence regarding this presence, a grappling with identity, a desire to
experiment with places and roles. (372)

Taking this as my starting point, I focus on deafness as a contradictory spectacle

of difference that ambivalently engages with discourses of containment. I
concentrate on the circus as the context in which deafness is constructed and
ogled in order to explore the relationship between deafness, sensationalism,
and spectacle. In conclusion I argue that the process of containment parallels
Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 7.1 (2013), 5369 Liverpool University Press
ISSN 1757-6458 (print) 1757-6466 (online) doi:10.3828/jlcds.2013.4
54 Hannah Anglin-Jaffe

the wider transition from manualist to oralist education in how deafness was
understood socially in the period.

Hide and Seek

Hide and Seek, Collinss third novel, was first published in 1854 and reissued in
1861. It contains detailed reflections about the experience of being deafened, the
loss of spoken language, sign language, theories about the causation of deafness,
attitudes toward deaf education, and attitudes to deafness and deaf people in
general. Disability and deafness were themes that Collins frequently returned
to in his work. Esmail argues that Collins is one of the Victorian novelists
most interested in how diverse bodies intersect with text, most attentive to
the issue of disability, and most committed to resisting the pathologization of
disabled people (99697). Many of Collinss novels include characters with
impairments, both as main characters, for example in Poor Miss Finch and
The Law and the Lady, and as minor characters in his other works, such as The
Woman in White and The Moonstone.
Hide and Seek is concerned with the mystery of the identity of the character
Madonna, known as Mary in childhood, who is deaf1 and does not speak
but signs when communicating with hearing characters (144). The novel has
two parts and Book I establishes the domestic arrangements of the Blyth
household, introducing Valentine Blyth, an artist; Mrs Blyth, his wife, who is
described as an invalid; and the young lady Madonna, or Mary, their adopted
daughter. The plot focuses on the discovery of Madonnas biological parents
and the circumstances that led to her being orphaned and abandoned. In the
first book the narration moves from the present day in which Madonna is a
young lady in Valentines household to recollections of Madonnas childhood
as an orphan in the circus, the accident that caused her deafness, and the

1. Since the 1970s the upper-case D in Deaf has been used to signal the socially constructed nature
of deafness and its association with the cultural identity of a community united by sign languages
(Monaghan and Schmaling). This is distinguished from deaf with a lower-case d that is used to refer
to the audiological understanding of hearing loss. Monaghan and Schmaling cite the contested
nature of this formulation, as it presumes identification with Deaf culture that not all people with
hearing loss will experience. Brueggemann has argued that it is necessary to address explicitly
how such terms are being used in each instance. In this article I use the lower-case deaf to refer to
constructions of deafness that have emerged from mainstream hearing culture (e.g. written by a
hearing author) or where it is unclear whether a person or character with hearing loss identifies with
Deaf culture. The upper-case Deaf is used when referring to people whose first language is a signed
language and who identify with Deaf culture.
 From Freak Show to Charity Case 55

unusual circumstances by which Valentine came to adopt her. The second book
returns to the present day of the novel and follows the progress of the family
friend Zack Thorpe as he follows clues relating to Madonnas past in order to
uncover her true identity.
In addition to the mystery surrounding her parents, Madonna is constructed
as mysterious in relation to her deafness. Early on the narration establishes
Madonna as appearing normal but hiding a mysterious difference: The keenest
observers, beholding her as she at present appears, would detect nothing in her
face or figure, her manner or her costume, in the slightest degree suggestive
of impenetrable mystery, or incurable misfortune (48). The mystery of her
invisible difference is linked to the questions relating to her identity that form
the focus of the plot and these mysteries are framed by the narration at the end
of chapter 7 in the form of direct questions to the reader about Madonnas lack
of speech:
Ever since Madonna has been in the room, not one word has she spoken to
Valentine; and not one word has Valentine (who can talk glibly enough to himself)
spoken to her. [] What can this absolute and remarkable silence mean between
two people who look as affectionately on each other as these two look, every time
their eyes meet! (52)

The mystery at the heart of the novel is therefore intimately connected

with the mystery of Madonnas deafness. This explicit sensationalizing of
Madonnas deafness is developed throughout the novel, through the attention
her difference receives from the hearing friends of the family (249) to the
recollections of her performances in the circus, from which she was rescued
and adopted, as a deaf and dumb foundling (56).

A Dreadful Misfortune: The Experience of Being Deafened

Early on in the novel Madonna is described as being beautiful but tragic:

Ah, woful sight! So lovely, yet so piteous to look on! (61). The narration asks,
shall she never hear kindly human voices, the song of birds, the pleasant
murmur of the trees again? (61). Deafness is constructed as both a tragedy
and a prison: shall the young, tender life be forever a speechless thing, shut
up in dumbness from the free world of voices? (61). Youth and freedom are
contrasted with the restrictions of muteness. The narration adopts a non-deaf
perspective that normalizes speech and approaches deafness with an intense
curiosity. In this period deafness is frequently described in spiritual terms,
56 Hannah Anglin-Jaffe

with the deaf person isolated from salvation but also protected from full
engagement with the world and perpetually innocent.2 Baynton argues, Until
the 1860s, deafness was most often described as an affliction that isolated the
individual from the Christian community. After the 1860s, deafness was
redefined as a condition that isolated people from the national community
(A Silent Exile, 21617). This transition can be traced to the changing
language used to refer to deafness in the period. Baynton argues that the
Metaphors of deafness by the turn of the century were no longer ones of
spiritual darkness but instead conjured images of foreign enclaves (A Silent
Exile, 229) within society. Evidence of both these conceptualizations can be
read as co-existing in Hide and Seek. In the initial descriptions of Madonna,
within the confines of her adoptive fathers home, she is constructed as
innocent but tragically imprisoned by her deafness. However, in other
passages in the novel the recollections of Madonnas childhood in the circus
reveal a construction of deafness as part of a threatening subculture that
supports the idea of deafness as a foreign enclave.
The representation of deafness as spiritual isolation and innocence can be
read as a reaction against an older association of deafness with evil. Medieval
theories aligned deafness with the devil and led to frequent representations in
literature and culture of deafness as aberrant. Before the nineteenth century
deafness was commonly associated with madness, clairvoyance, illiteracy,
savagery, and evil (Krentz 40). The descriptions of Madonnas deafening
conform to the extent that the experience is troubling, painful, and provokes
an unnatural change in her voice (Hide and Seek, 93). In Hide and Seek the
narration appears to acknowledge these beliefs and attempts to contradict them
by adopting an advocacy role to secure a sympathetic response through the
promotion of discourses of goodness and innocence. This leads to Madonna
being presented as wholly good rather than wholly evil. Madonnas spiritual
goodness becomes a defining feature of her character and she is constructed as
being able to talk with the angels and hear heavenly voices by the narration
(144). Her name makes explicit her religious associations, alluding to the
Madonna/Mary figure in scripture.
The narration describes how Madonna lost her hearing as a result of a
terrific accident (Hide and Seek, 56) that occurred during a circus act when
she fell from a performers arms while astride galloping horses. The ringmaster
relates the event as part of his advertising for the upcoming circus show.
Madonnas transformation into a deaf child after the accident is described

2. For more on deafness as spiritual innocence in the Victorian period, see Gitter.
 From Freak Show to Charity Case 57

as a traumatic and unnatural process by her then guardian Mrs Peckover, who
refers to her by her childhood name of Mary. The change in Marys voice is
described as
no more like little Marys voice, than my voice, sir is like yours. It sounded,
somehow, hoarse and low, and deep and faint, all at the same time; the strangest,
shockingest voice to come from a child, who always used to speak so clearly and
prettily before. (93)

Marys femininity is damaged and transformed by being deafened.

Mrs Peckover explains that the doctors advice was to force Madonna to
use her voice to prevent her from becoming dumb. However, the process
was too tortuous both for Mary and her guardians to endure. This presents
an interesting insight into the medical and educational practices for deafness
at the time of writing. Mrs Peckover recounts the doctors judgement that it
would still have been a pain and a difficulty to her to say her words, to her
dying day (Hide and Seek, 100). This is a pessimistic judgment on the value of
speech-teaching in the education of deaf children. Hide and Seek was published
in the period leading up to the crucial international convention of educators of
deaf children in Milan in 1880, in which the decision was taken to eliminate
sign language from education, against the wishes of the Deaf community.
This change in international policy, in favour of oralism, led to many years
of suffering on the part of the Deaf community as its preferred language
was repressed and Deaf teachers were prevented from working in schools.
Manualist methods of education are considered to be more deaf-friendly as
they were reported to be more favoured by Deaf people themselves.3
The attitudes expressed toward deaf education in the text reflect the influence
of the autobiography of John Kitto, a man deafened in childhood himself,
who is cited as the authority for Madonnas characterization in an authors
note (Hide and Seek, 431). Around the middle of the nineteenth century,
manual methods of communication were considered more successful than oral
methods. In keeping with this the novel presents sign language as more natural
for deaf people than speaking and the doctor is recounted by Mrs Peckover
as saying that people afflicted with such deafness as hers didnt feel the loss
of speech, because they never had the want to use speech; and that they took
to making signs, and writing, and such like, quite kindly as a sort of second
nature to them (100). In this way Hide and Seek can be argued to endorse sign
language and manualist methods of education.

3.For more on the elimination of sign language from deaf education and the preference for
manualist methods within the Deaf community, see Ladd; Baynton, Forbidden Signs; Lane and Re.
58 Hannah Anglin-Jaffe

Spectacular Deafness

Although it is Madonnas deafness that is described at length in the novel

and the search for her identity shapes the plot, it is Zack Thorpe, as a male,
non-disabled character, who is active in progressing the narrative. Madonna is
consistently presented by the narration as an object to be described, explained
or observed, not as an active agent herself.4 She functions as the focus of the
non-deaf/hearing gaze5 through the interest in her of the other characters
and through the projection of the implied reader, who is characterized as
interested and sympathetic toward afflicted characters (Hide and Seek, 431).
Madonna is variously described as a muse, artists model, and work of art
for her adopted father and other artists and poets, who are captivated by her
beauty and innocence (4951). Her status as object of the gaze is made explicit:
she seemed fated to be used as a constant subject of conversation by her fellow
creatures. Even her face alonesimply as a facecould not escape perpetual
discussion (48). The allusion to fate suggests a lack of agency and the curious
phrase simply as a face completes her construction as a doll-like figure. There is
a parallel here between the particular way in which Madonna is constructed as
an art object in the studio and the overall impact of her role in Hide and Seek
as she is transformed from freak to charity case to literary art object through
Collinss explicit positioning in the Authors Note (431).
The positioning of Madonna as the object of the gaze is further developed
through the introduction of various levels of spectacle, the most explicit of
which being the performance of deafness in the circus. Circus acts that displayed
individuals with physical differences for the amusement or amazement of their
audience for profit were commonplace in both America and Britain between
1840 and 1940.6 Cratton argues, The Victorian relationship to images of
physical difference was complex, marked by conflicting impulses to reject,
exploit, and celebrate the odd body (2). Durbach traces the popularity of the
phrase freak of nature to the period 18471914 when it was the most commonly
used term to describe individuals who displayed a congenital bodily anomaly
for profit (1). Durbach argues that such displays should not be dismissed

4. See Esmail for a fascinating discussion of Collinss struggles to represent signing in the speech-
obsessed Victorian novel. Esmail argues that Madonnas linguistic absence is the result of Collinss
insistence on describing Madonnas body language rather than her signing.
5. There is a parallel here between Shakespeares argument about the construction of disabled
characters as objects of a non-disabled gaze (288) in contemporary theory. Shakespeare argues
that the gaze focuses on the body, which is passive and available (288).
6.For more on the practices of displaying individuals with physical differences for profit, see
Bogdan.
 From Freak Show to Charity Case 59

as mere voyeurism but instead as critical sites for popular and professional
debates about the meanings attached to bodily difference (1). That Marys
acquired deafness should be used in this way in Hide and Seek therefore
resonates with both the popular interest and critique of the practice and the
wider cultural debates about difference within society. While deaf people were
not commonly part of such shows, there are examples from the period of deaf
people performing their deafness for hearing audiences in other contexts. In
his history of the deaf, Lane describes how the French educator of the deaf the
Abb de LEpe displayed deaf children for public viewing in simulated lessons
to demonstrate the success of his manualist educational method in his Paris
school. Similarly an advertisement for an International Health Exhibition in
The Pall Mall Gazette in 1884 includes a display of the oral instruction of
the deaf and dumb. However, this practice of displaying educational success
through the performance of deaf students is different in kind from the circus
performance in Hide and Seek. In Hide and Seek the practice of displaying the
deaf child is conflated with the freak show (typically associated with physical
or bodily difference, rather than the sensory) in order to explore this popular
curiosity.
The text does this through the description of a poster advertising Marys act.
The description of her circus act contributes to the sensationalizing of deafness
through the discourse of the freak show. However, this practice of sensation-
alizing deafness for entertainment is critiqued through both the narrations
and Valentines distaste and shock. The poster reads,
The Mysterious Foundling!

Aged Ten Years!!

Totally Deaf and Dumb!!! (Hide and Seek, 56)

Her act is subsequently described in a lengthy narrative attached to the poster

and ascribed to the ringmaster, Mr Jubber (5657). The narrative reads, The
above wonderful Deaf and Dumb Female Child will appear between the first
and second parts of the evenings performances. The accident that caused her
deafness is described in fantastical terms and is followed by a description of
her deafening:
To use the emphatic language of the medical gentlemen (who all spoke with tears
in their eyes), she had been struck stone deaf by the shock. Under these melancholy
circumstances, it was found that the faculty of speech soon failed her altogether;
and she is now therefore Totally Deaf AND Dumbbut Mr. J. rejoices to say, quite
cheerful and in good health notwithstanding. (57)
60 Hannah Anglin-Jaffe

Deafness as tragedy is exploited crudely in the poster and the deaf child
is alienated and stigmatized in the process. The circus invites members
of the audience (who are positioned as non-deaf themselves) to become
voyeurs of suffering and difference. This explicit sensationalizing of deafness
is condemned by the narration through the perspective of Valentine Blyth,
who judges the poster and description as grotesque and shocking (57).
The use of the deaf child in this way is judged to be distasteful, indelicate, and
inhumane. This explicit critique of the treatment of the deaf child led some
critics to describe Collins as an early advocate for disabled and deaf people (see,
e.g., Peters). However, the text is not clear-cut in its support for the acceptance
and de-stigmatization of deaf or disabled people. The narration is conflicted,
on the one hand sensationalizing deafness and reinforcing the demarcation of
difference, and on the other hand condemning the practice of displaying the
deaf child for an audience to gawp at. The narration accompanies Valentine in
his viewing of the circus with a kind of guilty pleasure.
Valentines moral outrage at a deaf child being used in this way lies alongside
the narrations and Valentines obsession with Madonnas difference. This
voyeuristic interest is extended to include sympathetic readers in the authors
note, whom it is presumed will be captivated by her affliction (Hide and Seek,
431). The difference in attitude between the two manifestations of the gaze
appear to relate to class. The circus is presented as distasteful in its attempts
to exploit and profit from misfortune; such explicit exploitation of difference
is condemned as dishonest and unpalatable by the narration. On witnessing
this exploitation Valentine is compelled to rescue Madonna from the circus.
He transforms her affliction from something to be exploited into something
to be pitied and protected. Within the bounds of the circus the deaf child is
a freak or outsider. She is part of a subculture that is beyond the bounds
of respectable society but survives through the exploitation of difference.
Through the moral outrage of the narration Madonna ceases to be a freak and
becomes instead a focus for charitable action.
The narration presents the contrasting reactions of the two audiences to
underscore the distinction between these discourses of freak and charity.
The middle-class circle who admire Madonna as a young woman in Valentines
home attempt to communicate in a dignified, well meaning manner. Their
interest in Madonna is as intense as the circus but is mediated through the
protective force of the middle-class home that buffers against the poverty and
exploitation of the circus. The circus audience on the other hand is presented as
a frantic, tireless mob (Hide and Seek, 60). Their attempts to engage Madonna
are visceral. They scrawl on her slate and kiss her at any opportunity (60).
 From Freak Show to Charity Case 61

Her abjectness in the face of this attention is emphasized. She performs her
act slowly and reluctantly and the circus audience responds with a general
murmur of sympathy and cry out Deaf and dumb! Ah, dear, dear, deaf and
dumb! (60). The narration implicitly judges the audience for enjoying the
spectacle of the deaf child. Valentines horror at the scene, both of the act
and the audiences reaction, implies a deeper sympathy for her vulnerability.
The narration mobilizes a desire to protect and rescue her from this pitiable
situation. Moral outrage about the lack of legal protection for child performers
and other members of society considered vulnerable is evident here, and
the desire to protect the needy is presented as the duty of the middle-class,
able-bodied, male.7
The circus is condemned for its subversive capitalization from difference,
and the autonomy of the performers is negated in the process. In the circus
Mary performs her difference as visible presence, provoking discomfort from
the middle-class observer. Within the safety of the home Madonnas purity
and silence are revered through the celebration of the absence of speech.
Shakespeare theorizes that the purpose of disability in cultural texts is to
close down ambiguity, to increase the distance between the normal and
the abnormal. In this sense the freak show is a particularly unambiguous
moment, in which the freak is clearly marked as different in relation to the
normalized viewer. However, in Hide and Seek the presentation of deafness is
conflicted and contradictory. There is evident stigmatization but there is also
a fascination with the boundaries of difference. In Hide and Seek ambiguity is
not closed down but instead opened up. The freak show is mobilized, but then
critiqued and then re-mobilized in an alternative form.
The treatment of disability as both strange and familiar described above
relates to the intersection of genres in Hide and Seek, which combines both
sensational and domestic elements. The sensational aspects of the novel
resonate with popular fears in the period of the 1860s relating to the impact
of Darwinian theories and eugenic concerns.8 Fears around the inherited
nature of deafness transformed social attitudes toward the condition. Wynne
argues that If the popular press offers an indication of the mood of the times,
the 1860s were clearly felt to be unsafe, and this belief played a part in the
receptivity of literary sensationalism as an articulation of modernity (8). The

7. See Assael for discussion of the emergence of moral concern about the role of children and
vulnerable adults in the Victorian circus.
8. See Pykett and Wynne for further discussion about the relationship between sensation fiction
and broader social and economic fears; the changing role of women; the influence of Darwinian
ideas and degeneracy within society.
62 Hannah Anglin-Jaffe

manipulation of these general anxieties of the period in sensation fiction may

have contributed to an association of deafness with fears about hereditary
health problems and a threat to society from a Deaf subculture. Concerns
about degeneracy and arguments relating to selective breeding were specif-
ically applied to the Deaf community by Alexander Graham Bell later in the
century in his paper Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the
Human Race.
This period of social change, around the time of the publication of the Origin
of Species, is significant in Deaf history as it can be seen to pave the way for
the exclusive adoption of oralist methods of education.9 In the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries deaf people in literature were constructed as blank
slates to be pitied and attempts were made to reach their isolated states.10
However, during the second half of the nineteenth century, as Darwinian
ideas captured the public imagination, fears around physical differences and
subcultures led to attempts to assimilate deaf people into society.11 Madonnas
initial description represents this concern for the spiritual welfare of the deaf
person or child, and can also be read in other examples such as writings about
the deaf-blind woman Laura Bridgman by Charles Dickens in American Notes.
In the descriptions of Marys accident and the ambivalence toward the circus
in Hide and Seek it is possible to read a concern for the survival of society and
the health and well-being of the individual. However, deafness as deviance
is represented alongside deafness as purity, suggesting ambiguity in the
construction of deafness at this time of transition.

Keeping It in the Family: Containing Difference

In the late nineteenth century there was a shift in the way in which deaf people
were categorized: they were no longer treated by charitable institutions as having
unique needs relating to their deafness, but were increasingly pathologized
as impaired non-hearing people.12 Foucaults theorization of the emergence
of discourses in the nineteenth century is relevant here. In Madness and

9. See Lane for more on the rise of oralism.

10. See Gitter and Smith for more on the construction of deaf individuals in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries in literature as tabula rasa.
11. See Beer for a discussion of how Darwinian ideas permeated popular culture and Baynton for
a discussion of the influence of eugenics on attitudes toward the Deaf community in the United
States.
12. For more on the pathologizing of the Deaf community see Branson and Miller.
 From Freak Show to Charity Case 63

Civilisation Foucault traces the forces of social change that enacted a transition
from the exclusion and avoidance of particular forms of social difference to the
confinement, assimilation, and attempt to sanitize undesirable elements within
society. The concept of bio-power is also significant and Foucault defines
this as the emergence of the great technologies of power in the nineteenth
century (Will to Knowledge, 140). Due to the rise of bio-power, with its
focus on cures and a future goal of perfection, the emphasis shifted from the
acceptance of deafness to a desire to eradicate it.13 In education this had the
effect of de-privileging sign languages and Deaf tutors through the discourse of
oralism. The aim of oral schools for the deaf after 1880 was to integrate the deaf
into the hearing world, rather than allow them to form silent sign-language
communities, separate from the rest of society. In this case assimilation with
the hearing world functioned as a powerful form of eradication of the Deaf
community, through the direct attack on the cultural transmission of sign
language and Deaf heritage, as well as attempts to prevent intermarriage and
socializing between Deaf people.
In The Birth of the Clinic Foucault explores the changing nature of medical
discourse and the impact this had on the perception of the body and disease.
Foucault describes a process in which a previously unspoken notion becomes
discourse. This process of the emergence of discourse can be applied to the
changing conceptualization of deaf people as part of an excluded subculture
(i.e. freak shows) to pitiable (i.e. charity cases), to be brought in and
protected. In Hide and Seek it is possible to read the emergence of deafness
as a social category, with deaf people (specifically the deaf child and woman)
becoming an issue of social concern and therefore the responsibility of the
state.
In Hide and Seek the realm of the middle-class home is represented as
offering protection from the threats of deafness to the well-being of the
individual and to the stability of society. The supportive nature of the home
and domestic life offers a counterpoint to the extremes of suffering associated
with the discourses of deafness as evil, deafness as isolation, and deafness as
deviance. The relationships developed within the home are based on interde-
pendency and so counteract the extremes of tragedy or social exclusion. In
Hide and Seek and in Collinss wider contribution to sensation fiction, there is
a concern with the impact (both limiting and inspiring) of impairments on the
senses and the soul. This interest in the human condition is constituted through
a focus on the experience of bodily affliction (431), which the text explicitly

13. See Ladd for further discussion about the relationship between bio-power and oralism.
64 Hannah Anglin-Jaffe

constructs and explores within a philosophy of philanthropy and a conceptu-

alization of community that cares for and protects the individual. In Hide and
Seek the focus is on the impact of sensory (Madonna) and physical (Mrs Blyth)
limitations, but within a context in which a community can compensate for
these limitations through support and acceptance. For example, the family
and their friends all learn what is referred to as the deaf and dumb alphabet
(121) in order to communicate with Madonna. In addition, Mrs Blyth takes on
the role of sign-language interpreter for Madonna with the explicit purpose
of ensuring that she is not excluded from social interactions (144). Madonnas
cheerful personality and presence in the community is described as an uplifting
force and she is popular and well loved by those around her. In particular, her
presence has a beneficial psychological effect on Mrs Blyth, whose ill health
would otherwise have caused her to despair (118). For example, the text reads,
All the little difficulties of communicating with her [Madonna] and teaching her,
which her misfortune rendered inevitable, and which might sometime have been felt
as tedious by others, were so many distinct sources of happiness, so many exquisite
occupations of once-weary-time to Mrs Blyth. (118)

And, Brighter hopes, better health, calmer resignation, and purer peace
seemed to follow the childs footsteps (118). In Hide and Seek characters
with and without impairments are constructed as mutually dependent as a
result of their inherent human vulnerabilities. The narration states, In this
homely sphere, life, even in its frailest aspects, was still greater than its greatest
trials; strong to conquer by virtue of its own innocence and purity, its simple
unworldly aspirations, its self-sacrificing devotion to the happiness and the
anxieties of others (119).
Mrs Blyth, Madonnas adoptive mother and Valentines wife, is described
as an invalid and established as a kindred character to Madonna (Hide
and Seek, 431). The authors note to the text claims that the inclusion of such
characters serves an explicit moral purpose that is so plainly on the surface,
that it can be hardly necessary for me to indicate it even to the most careless
reader (431). Despite suggesting it is unnecessary, the note reflects extensively
on the motivation for including such characters, claiming that the purpose is
to engage with the human condition in order to inspire and uplift readers by
support[ing] our faith in the better parts of human nature (431). The note
describes the inspiring aspects of Madonnas patience and cheerfulness (431).
This mobilizes the discourse of disability or deafness as wholly good again,
although at other points in the novel disability and difference are positioned
in a contradictory and alienating manner. The note claims that the description
 From Freak Show to Charity Case 65

of Madonna as a deaf-mute humanizes impairment, suggesting a desire

to avoid demonizing difference (431). However, this is undermined by the
explicit stating of this purpose, the emphasis on extreme goodness, and the
sensationalist manner in which deafness is described at other points.
These contradictions relate to distinctions between empathy and sympathy.
The note claims that the presence of impairment engenders empathy: what
elements of kindness and gentleness the spectacle of these afflictions constantly
developes [sic] in the persons of the little circle by which the suffered [sic]
is surrounded (Hide and Seek, 431). The distinction between empathy and
sympathy lies in the status of the object of empathy or sympathy and whether
that object is considered as pitiable or as an equal. Shakespeare describes a
process by which Disabled people enable able-bodied people to feel good about
themselves: by demeaning disabled people, non-disabled people can feel both
powerful and generous (28788). The notes construction of the suffered
person as dependent is patronizing and problematic. The connections between
the sufferer and the non-sufferer are also emphasized, reinforcing the need
for protection through the family. The note explicitly claims the intention to
elicit the best sympathies of readers (Hide and Seek, 431). Holmes argues that
this focus on sympathy makes use of disability as melodramatic machinery, a
simple tool for cranking open feelings (Fictions, 3). However, in Hide and Seek
this tool is far from simple.
This contradictory narration draws on competing discourses of disability.
The charitable discourse is explicit in the text.14 This discourse constructs
impairment as needing to be contained and pitied through the development
of welfare mechanisms, and is evident in the descriptions of the circus. The
motivation for the charitable discourse is to counteract the older aberrant
discourse that associates disability with deformity, horror, and stigmati-
zation.15 As argued earlier, in Hide and Seek these discourses appear to coexist
in conflict. Shakespeare describes these discourses as dehumanizing the
disabled person, due to their lack of realism and their explicit functionality.
Mitchells theory of narrative prosthesis or the dependency of literary
narratives on disability resonates here (20). However, the note analysed
above does more than just straightforwardly alienate the deaf and disabled
characters. This is a result of the investment of detail in the lived experience of
deafness from the autobiography of a Deaf person (John Kitto) and the interest

14. For further discussion of the charitable discourse of disability see Oliver; and Barnes, Mercer
and Shakespeare.
15. See Shakespeare for further discussion of the construction of disability as aberrant in contem-
porary cultural representations.
66 Hannah Anglin-Jaffe

in the cultural conflicts surrounding the social acceptance of Deaf people in

the period, particularly in debates around speech and sign language.

Conclusion

Hide and Seek is not a straightforward example of stereotypical attitudes

to deafness but is a conflicted and complex text that presents deafness as
troublesome, and troubling, in its appeal to society to respond to difference. At
the time it was first published in 1854 and its reissue in 1861, preceding the 1880
Milan Convention, it straddles conflicting models of deafness. The first model
positions deafness as innocent and spiritually isolated, in reaction against an
older association with deafness and evil. Alongside this is a fascination with
subcultural forces that manifest in the form of curiosity and the displaying
of deafness as freak show in the spectacle of the circus. Despite the explicit
discrimination of this model and the extreme poverty with which it was
associated, this period is often argued to be a golden age for deaf people due
to the flourishing of Deaf communities and sign language.16 In the latter
part of the nineteenth century and in reaction against these older discourses,
deafness is constructed as a charity-case, pitiable and needy, as Madonna
appears to Valentine in the circus. The subsequent containment of deafness
and attempts to assimilate deaf people into the community may have sought to
protect them from life on the outskirts of society; however, it also enabled the
development of the oralist ideology that attempted to eliminate sign language
from deaf education and to limit the reproduction of Deaf communities.
Throughout this article I argue that Collinss novel constructs deafness in
contradictory and complex ways. These conflicting ideas parallel the wider
cultural repositioning of deafness, from savage curio played out in the context
of the circus to a different kind of social object, contained within the protective
realm of emergent Victorian welfare and domestic structures: the charity
case. This repositioning of deafness is traced through both the denotative and
connotative meanings of the narrative within Hide and Seek and the authors
note. Collins proposes that readers will be sympathetically moved by both
the plight and the pathos of his deaf heroine, while the narrative positions
Madonna as spectacle, art object, freak, and ultimately charity case. The
exploration of the position of deaf people within society in terms of their role

16. For discussion about the manualist period in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a
golden age of the Deaf community see Ladd and Gitter.
 From Freak Show to Charity Case 67

within subcultures or integration within mainstream society parallels wider

cultural discussions about the deaf that preceded the crucial Milan convention.
While I read the novel as pro-manualist in a general way, there are still many
tensions about the implications of the difference represented by lack of speech
and signing, and these emerge in the contradictory responses to Madonnas
deafness throughout the text. In this way Hide and Seek can be read as an
engagement with cultural debates about where and how deaf people should be
educated, whether they should speak or sign, whether they should be shunned
or pitied, feared or aided, whom they should marry, and with whom they
should socialize. Ultimately these tensions are played out in the novel through
the exploration of the relationship between spectacle and deafness in Victorian
society, against a cultural background of the competing discourses of disability
manifested in the freak show and the ideology of charity. The combination of
the domestic and sensationalist genres in the novel provide the opportunity
for these ideas to converge in the spectacular framing of deafness within the
circus. In my reading of Hide and Seek I attempt to present the novel as an
opportunity to explore how these ideas were emerging in conflict in popular
culture at the time, with the ultimate aim to deconstruct enduring represen-
tations of deaf people as either saints or sinners at the mercy of a misguided
paternalism.

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