Cultural Criticism of Society's View of Deafness

One thing that I found really interesting about the book My Most Excellent Year is that, unlike many novels or movies I have heard of, is that Hucky (a Deaf orphan that one of the main characters, T.C., befriends) is not displayed as a character that should be pitied because of this deafness. Sure, the reader wants to pity the young child, but this is mainly because he is an Orphan who was abandoned by his mother. As Hucky breaks out of his shell and becomes comfortable with the other characters in the book, he is displayed as a smart, independent child who has a perfectly normal vocabulary range. This is contradictory to the stereotype that many Deaf community members are forced to deal with; the sad stereotype is that Deaf individuals are dumb, isolated human beings with a limited vocabulary because they were not able to receive a proper schooling because of their “disability.” (The Deaf community does not see deafness as a disability. The only see it as a part of them.)

Steve Kluger, the author of the novel, even went as far as to include a criticism of the way ignorant people from the hearing community, who may have never met a Deaf person, react to a child with Deafness. This criticism was briefly introduced when Hucky and T.C. traveled to New York to find Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins to Hucky. In one instance when a woman found out Hucky was deaf, she began shouting at him as if that would help (Hucky was completely deaf, not just hard of hearing.) Another example is when the New York cab driver saw T.C. signing to Hucky with the reflection off of his rear view mirror, he quickly offered the two a free tour of the city simply because he pitied Hucky. While this worked out quite well for the boys, such acts can result in negative consequences in other instances.