A Wakeup Call for Society

At some point in time, every family with a mentally handicapped member must make a decision regarding how to provide for their loved one. In some situations, putting a loved one in a facility does more harm than good when the facility is corrupt and does not provide adequate care for patients. Through setting and characterization, the short story “Average Waves in Unprotected Waters” by Anne Tyler and the documentary “Unforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After Willowbrook” by Danny Aiello, describe families’ accounts of placing a special needs relative in a hospital. The deplorable treatment mentally handicapped people suffer living under the care of hospitals should be examined by society to prevent and stop abysmal treatments.

One way Tyler expresses the deplorable living conditions in which handicapped people are forced to live, is through setting. By utilizing this literary element, one is able to see just what the environment in which Arnold lives in, is truly like. “Nobody else was in it; there wasn’t a sign that children lived there except for a tiny cardboard clown picture, hanging on the vacant wall.” (Tyler 973). The fact that there is only one cardboard picture of a clown in a children‘s room is depressing, has a sense of loneliness, and is not an adequate environment mentally handicapped children should be exposed to. If society examines the surroundings in this room , there may be efforts to try and reform this living space, making it more adequate for children, and provide it with a sense of security and warmth, which it unmistakably lacks. Another example of the impersonal environment of the hospital is when Bet sees where Arnold will be sleeping. “She led them into an enormous hallway lined with little white cots.” (Tyler 973). Providing cots for the patients to sleep in and lining them up in a hallway implies that this hospital does not care about the comfort of it‘s patients. If society intervenes and views exactly how these children sleep, people could potentially become dissatisfied with the lack of compassion and care demonstrated within this hospital, exemplified by the sleeping arrangements. One last instance where the unpardonable conditions of this hospital are illustrated, is through characterization. After asking numerous amounts of questions regarding Arnolds new living conditions, like any concerned parent, a nurse says to Bet, “Yes say goodbye to Mommy now Arnold”, (Tyler 974). Having the Nurse refer to Bet as “Mommy” displays a lack of respect and characterizes the Nurse as disrespectful. If this is how the mother of a patient is being treated, with disrespect, one can only imagine how that Nurse and her co-workers are treating the patients. If society intervenes and dismisses the corrupt workers, the hospital could obtain workers that are respectful, which ultimately leads to the hospital becoming less corrupt and a better, more adequate environment for special needs children to live in.