Current Issue
Theresa Schweden (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
This paper examines the narrative construction of disability in German web fiction by analyzing four web fiction texts as well as a forum discussion on the depiction of disabled characters in (web) fiction. Focusing on why disabled characters are included or excluded, which impairments are preferred, and what functions they serve in shaping the plot, the analysis draws on Mitchell and Snyder’s (2000) concept of ‘narrative prosthesis’ – the use of disability for narrative or metaphorical purposes – while the forum analysis explores the linguistic construction of asymmetric categories of ‘human differentiation’ (‘Humandifferenzierung’, Hirschauer 2023). The findings suggest that in web fiction disability is indeed employed to initiate the plot or to mirror a character’s inner conflict on a physical level either at different levels and in different ways. The forum discussion reflects asymmetrizing language that both reproduces and critically reflects negative concepts of life with disabilities genre.
