Pride And Prejudice Chapter Summary

The book opens with a parable regarding mountains. Eli makes it well known that they are heavily disabled alongside various other identities. Using disability to represent himself, the parable of the mountain describes social class and structure as being a daunting mountain. Those at the top scream down to find a way up but it is almost impossible. Although individuals may begin the journey to the submit it quickly gets lonely. The individual has the option to continue climbing or return to their group. Even then that doesn’t account for hazards and changes in the path to the metaphorical summit. This metaphor sets up the remainder of the book brilliantly. Exile and Pride, following the mountain metaphor, is divided into two primary sections; home and bodies.

Home is not exclusive to a place of residence but also a
“Gender reaches into disability; disability wraps around class; class strains against abuse; abuse snarls into sexuality; sexuality folds onto of race… everything piling into a single human body”. I agree entirely with this statement but rather than a sequence of ‘one is caused by another’ I find that all forces impact each other in an extremely complex web. The exact causal reason for one action or another cannot be determined in such a simplified method. The sequence of impact could be written in any number of ways. For this reason the best way to mitigate the impact of one is to work simultaneously on all. Despite being extremely confusing for those who are not pre-exposed to the various terms and concepts, Eli Clare’s ‘Exile and Pride’ is an appropriate addition to queer literature. The purpose of this book however is up for debate. As it currently stands as an addition to queer literature it serves its purpose well. If the book was intended to educate readers on disability politics then it also serves its purpose but is hindered by its medium and the language utilized to conveys the