Children of a Lesser God - a play

Children of a Lesser God

Children of a Lesser God is a drama about a couple who tries everything they can to communicate on an emotional or physical level. James is a music-obsessed deaf teacher who falls in love with the school’s caretaker, Sarah, who is a former pupil. Both do admirably given the difficult nature of their jobs. James portrays the romance convincingly and sympathetically without being pompous. Both partners have problems and chemistry. The film is set against a colorful backdrop, which can be regarded as a manner of emphasizing the capacity to see in order to compensate for the hearing impairment. James plays three roles in the film; he translates what Sarah talks, communicates his thoughts through words and narrates the play.

The Disability of Deafness

The disability featured in the film is deafness. The play involves deaf characters who use sign languages for communication. The first unique thing observed in this disability is love. The two partners, James and Sarah, are lovers in spite of Sarah being deaf and persistent and she does not desire to learn how to speak. Nevertheless, James surpasses her abilities to try and master the use of sign language. Furthermore, he tries to convince her by explaining that knowing to talk would offer her other life opportunities.

The Deaf Community

The community does not accept the deaf people. The deaf people are therefore treated in a way that makes them regard themselves as inferior compared to the people who can hear. Sarah intends to fight this injustice and provide a sense of belonging to the people who are deaf. The mother of Sarah regarded her as retarded in the play. She experiences frustrations due to the inability of communicating with her daughter. They later reconcile, and she accepts the love of Sarah. An attorney by the name Edna Klein, in her act, explains to the audience the challenges she faces while trying to talk and understand her clients who cannot hear.

Challenges and Acceptance

The challenges depicted in the play are the unfair treatment to the deaf people and struggle in relating to the society. The other hallmark is acceptance. The deaf people as portrayed by Orin and Sarah have accepted their conditions and are fighting to oppose, the discrimination they experience in their school. The wish of Sarah is to get deaf children since she considers her disability as “silence filled with sound.” The sound on the outside is not crucial to her, and her wish is that her kids will also have the same disability. Orin’s perception about the teachers focusing on teaching the deaf to read lips and thus speak is a pretense. The students wish that the school hired deaf teachers who would assist them to acknowledge sign language and consequently be noticed as superior. Such a case is proved when James experiences difficulties when he tries to learn sign language.

Living with Disability

The play aims to emphasize on the challenges that the people with disabilities encounter when trying to live in a particular community. The other issue is that some characters like Sarah do not have an interest in learning how to speak. She considers the action as a way of discriminating the deaf people and refuses to adjust to the hearing world. Orin is disappointed with Sarah as he holds that their relationship with James is blinding her and preventing her from fighting against injustice.