The Discourse of Deafness

How would you define deafness? It seems simple, right? It is when someone can’t hear. Not so quickly though, does it have a negative connotation to you? If you answered yes, it is probably because you are hearing. The documentary Sound and Fury questions this connotation by depicting two sets of parents, one deaf and one hearing, and their struggles with deciding whether to get a cochlear implant for their deaf child.

Cochlear implants are a new-aged technology implanted into the brain during a surgery, which allow a deaf person to hear. They are most successful in children, since the child’s linguistic and auditory brain regions are still developing. Although cochlear implants do allow patients to hear, they do not give the person speech skills or the ability to comprehend speech, so surgery is often followed by extensive speech therapy. The National Association of the Deaf has stated that their stance is clearly against cochlear implants.

In the deaf household, parents Peter and Nita have three deaf children. Their oldest, Heather, has recently asked for a cochlear implant so that she can talk to her hearing friends. Peter and Nita have a really hard time with this because all they know is their deaf culture. They identify as deaf and value the life that they live within a deaf culture. In this way, they almost have derogatory views of hearing people and the way that they see their culture as “normal.” After much thought, they chose not to do the implant, and to instead move to a more deaf-friendly location—Frederick, Maryland.

On the other hand, Peter’s brother, Chris, and his wife, Mari, view the implant as a valuable tool to improve their son’s future. Both hearing, but with deafness in their family, they are continuously exposed to and very familiar with deaf culture. They understood how hard it was for their family members to grow up deaf and how hard it is still for them to make a living, and for that reason chose the implant since it would give their son more options. Despite this choice, they still will teach him sign language and educate him on deaf culture.

The idea of Discourse as it plays into definition is a huge part of this film. Deafness has a different connotation for deaf people and for hearing people. Deaf people simply see it as a favorable trait; in one scene, when Mari asks her deaf parents how they felt about finding out they had a deaf grandson, they replied with “it was a gift from God.” Hearing people see quite the opposite; deafness is a handicap that needs to be corrected.

Sound and Fury offers an interesting dynamic, though, since the hearing family is fully immersed in deaf culture through their family. For this reason, their decisions are not based off of the average hearing person’s view of deafness. In their story, two Discourses play out to finally lead Chris and Mari to believe that the best option is to give the cochlear implant to their son, so as to give him the best of both worlds.

In a culture where hearing is the norm, it is not often we are exposed to deaf culture. Sound and Fury offers an avenue in which we hearing people can travel down to better understand this unfamiliar Discourse.