Ottilie vs. He

At first, I considered Ottilie and He to be in the same category as silent, disabled characters who still demonstrated consciousness and competence. Yet in one significant respect, they are different: He’s mother speaks of him constantly, whereas Ottilie’s family remains, uh…silent about her disabilities and deformities. The absence left by He’s inability to speak is constantly filled by Mrs. Whipple’s garrulous insistences that he is normal in his way. On the other hand, Hatsy pragmatically tries to dissuade the narrator of Holiday from any hope of successful human communication with Ottilie. While Mrs. Whipple’s insistence that her son is normal seems full of good intentions, it hides a more active negligence than the negligence of the Mueller family who passively fail to acknowledge Ottilie but allow her to maintain her use-value niche in their household. Holiday’s narrator notes that “their silence about her was, I realized, exactly that—Simple forgetfulness. She moved about them as invisible to their imaginations as a ghost. Ottilie their sister was something painful that had happened long ago and now was past and done for; they could not live with that memory or its visible reminder—they forgot her in pure self-defense.” I wonder whether Mrs. Whipple’s sense of self-preservation will ultimately require a similar forgetful silence from her once He has been removed from their home.