(This is the content of a short reaction paper for SLG 102, the sign language class Jodi and I are taking at Chandler-Gilbert Community College).

Sound And Fury: A Cross Cultural Crisis

Introduction

In watching Sound and Fury, I found myself often perplexed and frustrated at the inability of participants on either side of the debate to really engage the other in a way that did not degenerate into frustration, anger, or superiority. Part of the problem seemed to be attitudes of exclusivity on both sides that simply antagonized the other.

I know that this is not a simple "intra-family" struggle. It's a struggle between two cultures to make sense of a paradigm-changing technology. The ability to significantly improve a deaf person's hearing through surgery raises questions that are being vigorously debated in both the Deaf and hearing communities. These debates, captured in microcosm in Sound and Fury, are handicapped by the tensions of two cultures meeting head-on.