Crossing the Divide: Representations of Deafness in Biography

6. Biography in Deaf Hands: An Analysis

135 6 Biography in Deaf Hands An Analysis With the exception of Corinne Rocheleau, none of the writers discussed in this volume wrote autobiographical narratives. Certainly there was a lack of deaf autobiographical models in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But does this alone explain why Jean-Ferdinand Berthier, Yvonne Pitrois, and Corinne Rocheleau did not write about their own lives? Berthier indicated several times that he planned to write an autobiographical essay, but he never did so.* However, through the letters and the biographies he wrote, we get insight into his perception of his own life and times. His deep friendship for Bébian, his former teacher, expresses itself in his mournful commentary that Bébian died in sadness , far away from the deaf friends at the Paris institute who would have wanted to help and sustain him through these difficult hours.1 Berthier’s personal reverence for the Abbé de l’Épée is revealed throughout the text of his biography of the abbé (L’Abbé de l’Épée, Sa Vie, Son Apostolat, Ses Travaux, Ses Luttes et Ses Succès . . .), particularly in his citing of the abbé’s understanding that deaf people, above all, needed to have their dignity respected.2 Yvonne Pitrois did not write any sort of autobiographical statement either. Perhaps her shyness, coupled with her deep religiosity as a * On page 13 of volume 2 of Aux Origines du movement sourd: Ferdinand Berthier (1803–1886), edited by Yves Delaporte, we are informed that in 1861, at the same time that Berthier was seeking a number of more elevated posts, including that of archivist, he was also actively planning to write an autobiography. The projected title was Les Mémoires d’un sourd-muet, but this work was never completed. devout Protestant, made such an essay seem exhibitionistic or self-promoting to her. Indeed, in a 1928 essay about Pitrois’s later years, Margaret Hance speculated that temperamental reluctance was to blame for the absence of a Pitrois autobiography.3 Hance encouraged others to fill the void and write about this woman who never wrote about herself, but essays about Pitrois are all too rare, and much remains to be learned about this highly intelligent, gifted woman who devoted herself to her deaf and deaf-blind contemporaries. We can piece together some of her views and aspects of her personality from her biographical studies and her personal commentary in La Petite Silencieuse (The Little Silent Girl). From Hance we learn the staggering information that Pitrois did not personally meet another deaf girl until she was seventeen, and only then did she fully understand that her difference was shared by many others in France and across the world.4 Pitrois used her newsletter to offer succor and support to deaf women.5 In writing essays and articles for the magazine, she lost the feeling of isolation that her disability had imposed upon her, and she became a dear friend to the deaf “little sisters” who read her magazine and corresponded with her. But, equally important, Pitrois revealed her personal life in the magazine and shared it with her readers. One of the most touching issues included an account of her grief at the death of her mother and her plans to live part of each year, henceforth, with her older sister and nephew.6 It is a somewhat brief, truncated autobiographical narrative, but it is the only kind that Pitrois allowed herself. Pitrois’s biographies also include her personal views. In chapter 2 of her biography of Helen Keller, she expressed her belief that Keller’s appearances on the vaudeville stage were demeaning to the image of a deaf-blind person. Pitrois recommended that Keller find a more digni- fied manner of presenting herself to the hearing world. Pitrois’s austere religiosity was clearly revealed through this commentary, although she did not express her views in the first person. Corinne Rocheleau produced a clear narrative of the onset of her deafness in “My Education in a Convent School for the Deaf.” She wrote of the losses her deafness introduced into her life and her subse136 Crossing the Divide quent reclamation of much that she had lost—family, friends, and a joy in living. Her years at the deaf school in Montreal nurtured her love of art, letters, and scholarship and taught her to feel less bitter about her problems interacting with...