I am still planning on writing my essay about the nature of disability, but I have narrowed the focus so I am solely discussing Hope Leslie and Rappaccini's Daughter, and further, Magawisca and Beatrice. The primary theme I will be examining is "otherness;" how the notions of family, tribe and nation affect how these characters' notions of self and how they project these onto their personal relationships. Both characters have strong, omniprescent relationships with their fathers, and I will examine and compare how and if these are directly related to their supposed "disabilities," and how their relationships with their fathers are very causally and symbolically related to their physical shortcomings. Certainly in Rappacini's Daughter, Beatrice's father has not only created her disability, but is her disability. I found the essay "Allegory and Incest in Rappacini's Daughter" by Oliver Evans very illuminating. I will also examine both characters' notions of "womanhood," and how they are affected or stunted by their disabilities. I have found Judith Fetterly's "My Sister! My Sister! The Rhetoric of ... Hope Leslie" helpful, in that she analyzes very effectively Sedgewick's careful construction of the text, and how womanhood is portrayed therein. I will (perhaps finally) discuss the notion of "freedom" and how, though each respective character is held back by some other factor other than their disability (the garden, her race, etc), their self becomes the true barrier between them and the outside world.