SacksEssay Preview: SacksReport this essay“Autism is a complex developmental disabilityand is the result of a neurological disorder that effects the normal functioning of the brain, impacting development in the areas of social interaction and communication skills.”-Autism Society of America.
In the book An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks describes his encounter with Stephen Wiltshire, a man with autism. Stephen was considered one of the top child artists in Britain, and supposedly his autism helped him, giving him the ability to remember things exactly the way they are. Whatever Stephen sees he is able to recreate, almost perfectly, in a drawing. He is a genius in mimicry but is unfortunately deficient in symbolism and the meaning of things.
Sacks explains a time when Stephen and himself traveled to Moscow along with Margaret, Stephens literary agent. Margaret and Oliver took Stephen to the History Museum then, afterwards, had asked him to draw the museum exactly from memory. But what Stephen drew was quite different from the museum. Stephen had drawn too many onion domes that were not there. His rendition was completely off. Sacks then asked Stephen to draw St. Basils, and within a few minutes Stephens version was quite accurate. Sacks and Margaret had decided that the reason Stephen wasnt able to copy the History Museum was before he was distracted by police that were there at the time, which made him nervous, and because Stephen was only able to copy something he found interesting.
SACK, SACK.
(C)2005-08-27 18:42:54 MTR
Kendall, D. C., H. H. A., L. C. Thomas, John W. Rumsfeld, E. T. Taylor (eds.) 1990. “From the ‘Witches’ to the ‘Pillages’: The Rise of the Victorian Imagination.” Science, 4: 651-652.
Carrick, W., and Y. L. Miller (eds.) 2006. “Is Modernism a Mystery?” New Inquiry 1: 4-19. (Published under license in a book by the MIT Press).
We do not have to see Shakespeare. What we have to do is, we have to explore and look at Shakespeare in the context of a more humanized world. And even without a glimpse of Shakespeare, the same techniques will be applied to the Western imagination.
The “Witches” by John W. Rumsfeld: In Search of a Meaning
P.A.: An Exposition of the Past, Present and Future of English Fiction. In J.-Y. Rummel’s Translators’ Publishing Company, Ltd., 2006.
[PDF]
This is a very brief account of the many things that have happened to English Literature over the past millennium. Most of the people involved have been very much influenced by and influenced by the “Witches” of literary work, though we could see some of the same factors in other popular genres.
“Saints, Kings, and Witches and Lullabies and the Quest for Meaning, ”
[In “Rumsfeld’s “Book of Poetry,” The Boston Globe, November 15, 2000]
| “Possible Interpretation:
1. Shakespeare’s life is a tale of two sons: the Prince, whose father is Sir Christopher from Somerset, had inherited the title of King of England at the death of his father’s brother, in 563, as a consequence of a feud with his father, and has been in the picture with both Edward and Elizabeth since he has come to power. Sacks goes on to tell more stories of Stephen and his able to mimic whatever he sees or hears. When Sacks says that Stephen has a genius in mimicry this is exactly what he is talking about, Stephens ability to copy. But Stephen lacks the capacity to understand the meaning of something, or as Sacks explains, the “thisness”. Which means that Stephen can copy whatever, but have no clue what it stands for or the meaning behind it. Like, if Stephen were to sing a song, he could sing it perfectly, hitting every note, but not understand what the song is about. Stephens ability to copy what he has seen from memory shows his brilliance in mimicry. His talent for replication in uncanny, Stephen, however, is unable to understand the meaning of what he has created. An example is when they had traveled to Arizona. Sacks and Stephen had taken a trip to Arizona and spent and afternoon at the Canyon de Chelly. Stephen had spent time with a Navajo artist, who had showed Stephen special techniques in drawing he had learned from his tribe. Stephen had not seemed to care very much what the artist was telling him, going about in his nonchalant way. The artist and Stephen had both drawn the desert and the Navajos sacred ground. While drawing Stephen seemed to be distracted, constantly looking around. the artist, on the other hand, had hardly moved, content on what he was drawing, trying to capture the sacredness of the grounds. “Stephens drawing was manifestly the better and seemed (even to the Navajo artist) to communicate the strange mystery and sacredness of the place. Stephen himself seemed almost devoid of any spiritual feeling; nonetheless he had caught, with his infallible eye and hand, the physical expression of what we, the rest of us, call the sacred.” (Sacks 232). Stephens drawing of the Canyon de Chelly, shows once again, his mysterious capability to reproduce whatever he sees, but it also proves his inability to understand meaning. When listening to the Navajo artist, Stephen seemed completely uninterested. In Stephen Wiltshire And Oliver Sacks. (August 29, 2021). Retrieved from https://www.freeessays.education/stephen-wiltshire-and-oliver-sacks-essay/ |