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Karen Casillas
Professor Armstrong
Anthropolgy 371-01
October 27,2017
Resource Analysis 2: Spanish Children Literature and Disabled Characters
Traditional stories passed down from one generation to another, have had representation

of a individual with a disability. In the article, “ Disabled Characters In Spanish Children’s

Literature,” writtten by scholar Cristiana Cañamares Torrijos she provides examples in how in

children’s spanish literature centuries before there was this misconception how a person with a

disability is to be seen with pitiness or a result of punishment due to poor conduct to the reader’s

eyes. As well there are nursery rhymes mentioned by Torrijos observed by Cerrillo stating “some

nursery rhymes make fun of other people with physcial defects…humour is crueler when

describing disabled people”. Over centuries people with disabilites have always had an

appearance in stories and for majority of the time they have been protrayed as characters who

have been punished by God. A character with a disability is protrayed in literature typically with

a connotation features in physical, mental and sensory disabilites.

The intention of this article is to bring awareness about children’s stories featured

characters with disabilites. Torrijos emphasizes the titles of stories that are specific in physical,

mental and sensory disabilities.In the story La Niña sin brazos, the physical appearance of no

arms the little girl is stated by Torrijos as, “The Devil cuts off the girl's arms to prevent her from

doing the cross”. This was once seen as an evil doing or as a wort of punshiment for bad doing

actions in the past, or seen as simply a bad doing to an innoncent child. In the children book

Senen, sports are stated by Torrijos as, “ a way of social intergration for people with mental

retardation”. Through sports, people with mental disabilites are given the opporunity to take part
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of society, rather than to be forgotten by society. Ultimately sensory disability is percieved

through the lense of visual, deafness, and speech. In the book Paulina written by Ana Maria

Matute, Torrijos mentions how in Oyeme con los ojos, written by Dias a young boy named

Horacio learns how to communicate with people and accept his disablility after an illness.

Torrijos states Horacio was seen as, “courageous and optimstic ”. After overcoming such life

changing event at such a short age, Horacio is seen as someone who overcame a life changing

event despite the obstacles placed in his way. Torrijos also mentions how speech appears in El

saltamonte verde, when the protagonist Yungo´s voice is stolen and the only voice he has is a

silent language, of the birds and wind in which Torrijo describes as ,“voiceless, like his own”.

Clearly although there might not a physical disability, there is still a clear representation of

disability through these children book characters.

The author Torrijos states “ disabled characters are still sacred in children’s literature”.

This means that characters with disabilites are just as important as non-disabled characters. Not

allowing the disabled to be forgotten or made invisble to the public eye through literature is the

goal. As a recommendation, this reading should be included into a feature class, not only

because it analyizes connitation features in children’s feature be noticable, but as a reminder to

make people be aware of disabilities that we often do not catch in literature, especially in

children’s literature. This article is bring awareness about children’s stories featured characters

with disabilites.
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Work Cited Page

Torrijos, Cañamares Cristina. “Disabled Characters In Spanish Children's Literature. ” Disability

Studies Quarterly Winter 2004, Volume 24, No. 1,

http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v24i1. Accessed on October 26,2017.