A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

caught by something else she wanted to listen to, something jazzy or bluesy. In Stewart‟s
terms, there is a politics involved in Rose‟s having to wait downstairs. Dependence is created
in that she is expected to make a choice from among those limited cd‟s the sales assistant
brings back down with her. Some disabled people in this situation might feel a sense of
obligation to buy: after all, the sales assistant has shown kindness in taking the trouble to go
upstairs to fetch the classical cd‟s. As it happens, Rose is assertive enough to decline those
she is offered.
The fact that, at the end of 2008, there was still no customer lift in W.H. Smith‟s in this
highland town conveys several messages to Rose. It is not expected that people like her will
want to come into this shop, certainly not to go upstairs, will not want to browse, will not
want to choose, are not valued as customers. Here is a sense of disconnection, of difference
as inferiority, from the majority of other shoppers. While presumably well-intentioned, the
shop assistant‟s response to this situation is one which invalidates Rose‟s subject position
while affirming her own: she can walk upstairs, Rose cannot.
Rose knows that she is experiencing inequality in this situation and it makes her feel
uncomfortable. In having decided that she would like to examine the Mozart cd‟s for sale she
identifies herself as a woman of discrimination and taste. Yet the power relationship
involved in the encounter with the sales assistant is sensed as demeaning and belittling.
Whereas she sees herself as an educated woman who enjoys classical music, she is cast here
as someone who cannot climb the stairs, and as a victim of misfortune.
While she manages to maintain a positive view of herself, at an emotional level she finds this
exhausting:
206
...it‟s the drip drip drip effect... it‟s when you have had that negative input not five
times in a week but several times in a morning... in an afternoon... in an evening... it
is about finding the resources to go on... (l.3:607ff.)
Rose recognises at an intellectual level that disability is a political issue:
...we know we need to do more about the pavements... we need to do more about the
buses which aren‟t accessible... (l.3:622),
It is, however, at the level of the senses that she feels undermined not only by the
condescending and patronising comments and responses she receives but also by those who,
perhaps, mean well but still diminish her power and agency. In trying to preserve a positive
self-identity, in many ways Rose rejects her disabled self.