ABSTRACT
When the public has no direct experience with a disability, narrative representations of that disability provide powerful, memorable definitions. In films, novels, plays, biographies, and autobiographies that depict a character with a disability, the character comes to exemplify people with that particular disability-demonstrating how individuals with that disability behave, feel, communicate, exhibit symptoms, and experience life. In short, a character with a disability serves as a lens through which an audience can view and define that disability.
