Stuttering and Tokyo Ghoul
Hello.
I am Monochro.
This time, I would like to share my thoughts on reading Chapter 1, Self-advocacy for people who stammer, from "Stammering Therapy from the Inside (STI)" (It has little to do with the text.)
Please refer to the following article by Kaien for more information on self-advocacy.
You may be wondering what the title "Stuttering and Tokyo Ghoul" means. To avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to explain that it does not mean that the author of "Tokyo Ghoul", Mr. Sui Ishida, has a stutter, or that characters with a stutter appear in his works.
Some of you may not be familiar with "Tokyo Ghoul," so I will give a brief introduction. Tokyo Ghoul" is a manga that has been serialized in Weekly Young Jump magazine since 2011, and was later adapted into an anime and a live-action movie. The sequel, "Tokyo Ghoul: re," was completed in 2018, but it still has many deep-rooted fans both in Japan and abroad.
The main character, Ken Kaneki, is a university student leading an ordinary life, but when he gets involved in a certain incident, he becomes a half-ghoul (half-human, half-ghoul).
The term "Ghoul," which has been mentioned many times before, is simply put, a vampire-like entity. A "Ghoul" is a creature that looks exactly like a human but can only eat human flesh and coffee, with no restrictions such as not being able to work during the day like a vampire.
In the world of Tokyo Ghouls, the minority of the Ghouls live in a world where they blend in with the majority of humans, hiding the fact that they are Ghouls. Although the existence of the Ghouls is not well known, they are feared by humans because they eat humans, and the Ghouls live their lives pretending to be normal humans.
For example, they practice eating sandwiches to make them look delicious because they are unable to eat normal food. They study how they should chew their food to make it look delicious (e.g., exaggerated mouth movements, swallowing at just the right moment, etc.) and prepare their impressions of the taste (e.g., "The bread here is fluffy and delicious"). Of course, since they cannot eat normally, there is no way they can taste the sandwich, which to them is very fishy and garbage-like, and they pretend to be normal human beings by spitting it out in the toilet later.
Also, after becoming a half-ghoul from a human, Kaneki can no longer eat his favorite food, beef steak, and it is very painful to lose the ability to do things that he used to take for granted. Kaneki cannot accept the fact that he has become an "ghoul" and tries to starve himself with coffee alone without eating human flesh until he is starving. Although the Ghoul can drink coffee, the nutritional value of coffee is low and he needs to consume human flesh regularly, and as a result, he is able to survive hunger by being forced to eat human flesh (meat of the deceased) by his fellow Ghoul. This is very shocking to Kaneki, who thought he would rather die than eat humans.
I am not that familiar with anime and manga, but when I read "Tokyo Ghoul" for the first time at the time, I was hooked because I felt that the suffering of the Ghouls was similar to that of a person who stutters (I am more of a Tokyo Ghoul fan than a :re fan). I even regretted why I had never heard of this interesting work before.
If you are a person who stutters, I think it is easy to sense that there are things in common with Ghouls, but for those who do not stutter, it may be difficult to understand, so I will tell you more about it.
Stuttering symptoms are highly dependent on situations and words, and the difference between fluent and non-fluent speech is large, making it difficult to identify the symptoms of this disorder due to its dependence on situations and words. Therefore, as a person who stutters, you may feel as if you are seen as healthy (a normal person) by those who have not seen you stutter, and as if you are seen as disabled (an unusual person) by those who have seen you stutter. This daily experience gives the person who stutters a sense of going back and forth between normal and handicapped (duality, ambivalence), something similar to the half-ghouls in the Tokyo Ghoul.
So, what exactly do they have in common? First of all, they sometimes have to disguise themselves in their daily communication to communicate in a way that is unnatural.
For example, everyone is nervous to a greater or lesser degree when they have to give a presentation in a school class, etc. However, the nervousness that most people feel is very different from the nervousness felt by people who stutter.
For a normal person, it is not so common to worry about being able to say one's own name when giving a presentation, but for a person who stutters, saying one's own name itself can be a big hurdle. Also, even though they have prepared a manuscript for their presentation and practiced speaking out loud many times, they get stuck on a sound they are not good at or cause repetition. For this reason, when I see people without stuttering saying to each other, "I'm nervous about the presentation - lol," I think to myself, "What are people who can speak their words so smoothly and freely doing that they are so nervous? My heart is pounding, my arms and legs are shaking, and I don't even know if I will be able to finish my presentation safely." I feel strongly angry. Even though I feel this way in my heart, I can't honestly say so, so I have to be rough and say something like, "Yes, I'm nervous. It is very stressful to have to respond with something like, "Yes, I'm very nervous. I feel as if I am like a group of ghouls who have to say that a sandwich they can't eat tastes good.
The other is that he is no longer sure whether his identity lies with the healthy or the disabled. Kaneki had simply thought that the Ghoul was a scary being until he became a half-ghoul, but by becoming a half-ghoul himself, he learns that the Ghoul has its own justice and its own suffering. In the work, the ghoul is targeted by a police-like entity called hato (pigeon), and must always be on the lookout for those around him or her.
Something similar is true of stuttering. It means that we must be careful how we speak so that we do not stutter (stammer) on a daily basis. Many people who stutter can predict sensibly the words they are going to stutter. For example, if they feel that they are going to stutter on the "o" in "ohayo gozaimasu," they may just bail without saying "ohayo gozaimasu," or if they feel that they are going to stutter on the "i" in "iced coffee" when buying an iced coffee at a convenience store, they may I may paraphrase. A person who stutters has to be on the lookout for his or her stuttering at all hours of the day, and this alone can be mentally draining for the stutterer.
The public is too concerned about every single thing that you stutter. You may feel that it is different from that of an ghoul, but the truth is that many people who stutter have to live their lives like an ghoul whose life is threatened by a white dove at all hours of the day, frightened of words (not wanting to be exposed as a disabled (unusual) person or as a person who stutters!) I have to live my life.
It is very painful to have to lie to yourself and it is very difficult to hide your stutter. But it is not impossible (e.g., stop speaking when you feel like stuttering or reduce the amount you speak). It is possible (if the symptoms are mild) to go further than one might think. This feeling is why people who stutter feel like they are both healthy and disabled.
In the work, Kaneki becomes a valuable presence on the borderline between the majority human and minority ghoul as a half-ghoul. The scene in which Kaneki struggles to decide whether he should stand on the side of the humans or the side of the ghoul is truly heartbreaking. Also, as a half-ghoul, it is difficult to live in between the two sides of the border, which makes it hard for both the humans and the ghouls to understand him. However, Kaneki's efforts to become a bridge between humans and the ghouls by taking advantage of his special characteristics as a half-ghoul makes me, as a reader, want to root for him wholeheartedly.
I feel that stutterers have a similar feeling, the pain of living in between being neither normal (in the general image of society) nor handicapped (in the general image of society). Being halfway between the two, there is a sense of loneliness, as if no one understands you. However, as a person who is not half-quarantined, but half-disabled (a term coined by me), he is not a half-quarantined person. I have a faint hope that he can be a bridge between the able-bodied and the handicapped, just like Kaneki. Perhaps there are perspectives that only a person who stutters can see.
This is the end of the "Stuttering and the Tokyo Ghoul" section.
Finally, I would like to share two passages from Chapter 1 of STI that particularly impressed me.
The first is a quote from Meredith (2010).
"By taking pride and being open that you have at times a disability you will help to redefine the negative social stigmas that are commonly attached to that world. There is absolutely no shame at all with admitting that your stuttering at times may cause restrictions and limitations upon your day to day life and as a result could be termed as having a disabling effect on your life from time to time.When the need arises say it loud and say it proud.I AM DISABLED."
The second is a quote from Irwin (2005).
"The general concept is one of individual rights for the person who stutters. In other words, some may choose to live with their stuttering while others may work at overcoming it- the path is for each individual to decide. But with either path the word disability remains. Stuttering can be seen as a disability to be lived with, or as a disability to be overcome."
This is the end of this issue.
Thank you for reading this long article.
See you soon 👋
Have a nice day!