SOURCE: “Ann Petry's Mrs. Hedges and the Evil, One-Eyed Girl: A Feminist Exploration of the Physically Disabled Female Subject,” in Women's Studies, Vol. 24, 1995, pp. 599–614.

In the following essay, Thomson uses feminist theory to argue that the character of Mrs. Hedges in The Street repudiates most of the myths which relegate disabled women to passive roles.

One evening recently, as I snuggled in next to my daughter while reading her our ritual bedtime story, I was struck by a depressingly familiar and predictable moment in the book she'd chosen. The story was a richly illustrated adaptation of a Grimm folk tale, featuring the standard array of good little girls, bad little girls, and wicked stepmothers. The unfolding plot is a wretched struggle among all the females over who will get to be queen, the apotheosis of womanhood bestowed on the most deserving of the lot. Naturally, the king, for...