The Child as Creator in McCaffrey's Dragonsong and Dragonsinger

The disabled child and the gifted one are often perceived to have little in common with each other or with more "ordinary" children. However, McCaffrey has presented the gifted child as disabled in the person of Menolly, the musician/composer heroine of both Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, showing through Menolly that perhaps "gifted" and "disabled" are not so different, after all, and that both have the same emotional needs as "ordinary" people.

Menolly is a gifted musician. She not only sings and plays almost any musical instrument well, but she writes good and highly singable songs, the kind that make up the incidental music that is the primary entertainment on her world of Pern—where musicians, or Harpers as they are called, are highly regarded, for they not only entertain the people but provide all instruction regarding the lore, history, and survival techniques of their planet through the teaching ballads. Because of her abilities, Menolly's path toward recognition in this highly honored craft should be as easy as that of most talented children once their talent is recognized by someone who can help them. However, it is exactly here that Menolly is different.

Menolly is the youngest daughter of Yanus, Seaholder of an isolated coastal hold on the Northern continent of the planet Pern. In this semi-feudal, intensely patriarchal society, the role of women is severely limited. They are not trained in trades or crafts of any kind, although they are expected to help out with the menial work whenever needed. They are educated as children by the Harpers, but unlike the boys who then take up a trade, they are confined to domestic tasks and wait for their fathers to arrange marriages for them. At best, if they are high up the social ladder, they may achieve some kind of domestic power. As most Pernese live in large, complex social clusters called holds or crafthalls, only the headwoman of a crafthall or the first wife of the head holder ever achieves even that power.

As a girl, Menolly is disadvantaged from the beginning. She is a brilliant musician, taught as much as he knows by the very knowledgeable old Harper of the hold, Petiron. But by the beginning of Dragonsong, the first of the two novels, Petiron has died, after sending a couple of Menolly's songs to the Masterharper of Pern, Robinton. Alone, without a champion in the hold of her arch-conservative father, Menolly is forbidden to play her own tunes and is beaten severely when she does. Then, when she slices her hand open cleaning fish, her mother sews the hand together badly, deliberately intending to cripple Menolly so that she can never play an instrument again.

At this point Menolly becomes physically disabled, as well as being gifted, but remains as disadvantaged as before. She is now even forbidden to sing in the evenings with the rest of the people of the hold, once the new Harper comes, lest he discover she taught the children during the months between Petiron's death and his arrival, and the hold be disgraced. With no word regarding her songs from Master Robinton (who is searching for her but does not know who she is), and unable to stand the oppression at home, although she believes herself truly and permanently maimed, Menolly flees her hold.

McCaffrey is thoroughly presenting here the problem of the unacceptable gift. If Menolly had been a boy, there would have been no problem with her going to Harper Crafthall, where her talents would have been trained and developed early on. However, because she is a girl, her ability is denied by others, not just ignored. As it is, she is fifteen, emotionally scarred, and partially crippled when she finally gets to Harperhall. It is a long time before she can even be persuaded to openly write music again, the injunction on her not to write having been so strongly and brutally enforced.

But for the true creator spirit, creating is as necessary to life as breathing is. Thus Menolly's disability is also her greatest strength...