ABSTRACT
A significant feature, embedded within the complex experience, and which frequently falls between the aforementioned gap, is the role of care and the problematic relationship many disability scholars have with the subject. The struggle to balance independence with a cultural perception that receiving care equates to dependency is difficult in a society that valorises autonomy. This chapter demonstrates how reading literary representations of care provides us with the opportunity to both critically analyse the act of caring and challenge Western cultural narratives surrounding the disabled body. While much of the scholarship examining care is carried out by sociologists, ethicists and feminists, the questions of power, identity, difference and the individual, which are integral to discussions of care, underlie its representation. The relationship between Malcolm and the Earl is useful for examining the power dynamics within the relationship and exploring how a disabled person achieves autonomy.
