One of my favorite playwrights, and one of the great tragedies of his life was what has long been considered his "mentally ill" sister, Rose. But in 2012, this article indicated that might not be so.
Not Like All the Other Horses: Neurodiversity and the Case of Rose Williams
In this essay, I will revisit Rose’s case and show that if her troubled adolescence took place today, she would likely be diagnosed with the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) Asperger’s syndrome. My purpose here is not to perform a postmortem diagnosis based on anecdotal or literary evidence, but rather to use a different interpretation of these symptoms to demonstrate two important ideas: first, that notions of mental illness are subjective and culturally relative, and second, that certain long-standing assumptions about Rose Williams and her relationship to her brother’s canon should be called into question. Underpinning this examination will be neurodiversity, a relatively new theoretical concept that both informs and is informed by Williams’s conflicted feelings concerning Rose and her mental state, his exploration of those feelings through his plays, and the ways in which those feelings and literary explorations evolved over time.
Not Like All the Other Horses: Neurodiversity and the Case of Rose Williams
In this essay, I will revisit Rose’s case and show that if her troubled adolescence took place today, she would likely be diagnosed with the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) Asperger’s syndrome. My purpose here is not to perform a postmortem diagnosis based on anecdotal or literary evidence, but rather to use a different interpretation of these symptoms to demonstrate two important ideas: first, that notions of mental illness are subjective and culturally relative, and second, that certain long-standing assumptions about Rose Williams and her relationship to her brother’s canon should be called into question. Underpinning this examination will be neurodiversity, a relatively new theoretical concept that both informs and is informed by Williams’s conflicted feelings concerning Rose and her mental state, his exploration of those feelings through his plays, and the ways in which those feelings and literary explorations evolved over time.