Fogarty.Anna.Rufus at the Door

In the short story Rufus at the Door the author, Jon Hassler uses postcolonialism to portray how this community and time setting degrades anyone who is not, what they consider, normal by locking them up in an asylum. When the narrators class goes to Rochester their teachers, especially Miss Sylvestri, portray this literary lense very well.  Miss Sylvestri constantly is referring to the people that live in the insane asylum as morons, imbeciles, idiots, and many other names that are very degrading.  “Mr. Lance drove the bus and Miss Sylvestri stood at his shoulder and delivered an unnecessary lecture about how lucky we were to have been spared from craziness and retardation.” (Hassler, 22) This quote is a prime example of how the teachers from the narrator's school, along with the rest of the community treat all of the people who have mental disorders.  Most people in this era thought that if you had anything wrong with you that you needed to be put in a mental hospital.  In this story the students even refer to a character, Henry Ahman who has epilepsy, as a moron.  This goes to show how horrible and degrading the community treats those who they classify as mentally challenged. Rufus and his mother had been one of the only ones in the society that were an exception to thinking that anyone who had a problem had to be kept in the insane asylum. The narrator was the other, he thought that Miss Sylvestri’s speech was “unnecessary.”  Even Rufus’s own family conformed to this degrading way of life that the rest of the community had on those they didn’t think were “normal” and ended up sending Rufus to the asylum.  Throughout this short story Miss Sylvestri and the rest of the community refer to those who live in the insane asylum as morons, imbeciles, idiots, and a lot of other degrading names and references.  By degrading all people who have any sort of problem at all, the community in this short story portrays a sense of postcolonialism.

Review of my short essay Rufus at the Door. To the introduction of this short essay I added in how the author uses postcolonialism, and I used the literary term time setting. Both of these things were suggested by my peers and I think they helped to strengthen my essay. I also added how not only Rufus and his mother are an exception to the community, but also the narrator. I also added the narrators view of how Miss Syilvestri's speech she gave the class was unnecessary.