Chow Down Right: Pookas, Gender, and the Autism Spectrum

(Note: This article contains some spoilers for the play Harvey, written by Mary Chase in 1944 and made into a movie starring Jimmy Stewart in 1950. Seriously, you’ve had plenty of time to see it.)

Elwood P. Dowd has a friend: Harvey, a six-and-a-half foot tall white rabbit. Or, if you prefer, a pooka. This might not be so much of a problem, if it weren't for the fact that only Elwood can see him.

Everyone wants Elwood to be normal, and not see Harvey anymore. Near the end of the story, the doctors offer up a convenient injection (Formula 977) which will completely cure Elwood. No more hallucinations, no more pookas. He will be just like every other normal person.

In the most general, surface interpretation, Elwood represents the harmless eccentric. Those who view reality through slightly different lenses, and harm no one -- indeed, by their very existence, they make life more interesting, more pleasant.

But in a broader sense, he also represents everyone who struggles to exist on their own terms. Everyone who has experienced society, close friends, and even family trying to change them, to make them "normal." For the vast majority of these, there is no magical pooka, nor plot macguffin, to ensure that everything turns out for the best.

Perhaps Mary Chase didn't intend for her beloved character to represent these elements. On the other hand, how could she not? These issues certainly existed in her time.

In the 1940s, homosexuality was a hotbed of controversy across the world. Some countries were taking steps toward legality and equality, while others vehemently moved in the opposite direction. All throughout this decade, and the next, the US continued a policy of silent oppression (Illinois was the first state to repeal thier sodomy law, in 1962).

Research on autism truly began in the 40s. 1944, the first production of Harvey, also witnessed the birth of the term "Asperger's syndrome." Of course, like the spectrum of gender, the autism spectrum has always been with us. We just called them both by different names. Such people, like Elwood, were "different." Some lucky few found acceptance. Most real-life stories did not have such a happy ending.

In real life, there is no "Formula 977" that will turn everyone "normal." But so many people act as if there were, and would gladly force others to take it. I need only point to the current anti-trans situation in Texas. Nor is the attitude limited to heartless politicians. Take a look at ABA and tell me that many loving parents wouldn't choose some magic pill if it made autism disappear - or, at least made it invisible. Shock treatment is in use even today, as are abusive “conversion camps.”

Chase wants the audience to believe that Harvey is real. Little bits of stage directions have doors opening and closing by themselves, indicating that an invisible person is entering a room. Elwood knows he has to answer a telephone before it rings, because Harvey tells him the future. By these devices, she gets us on Elwood's side. He can't be crazy, and we want him to hold on to his magical friend. In this way, we get to hold on to our own fantasies, and maybe there's a chance that those are real too -- and that we can find acceptance for our own personal strangeness.

Here's a little secret about the stage directions in a playbook: The director doesn't have to follow them. You must remain faithful to the dialogue (at least, in a copyrighted work), but you can change up the blocking however you like. Yet, even if we omitted all the self-opening doors, I think we'd sympathize with Mr. Dowd - and we find little clues from the author that she was addressing larger issues.

Elwood does not try to change people. He recognizes beauty wherever he sees it. A flower, a dear friend or relative, a complete stranger, even a voice on the telephone. Age doesn't matter, the attitude of the person toward him doesn't matter. Everyone shines with beauty for him, so everyone is a potential friend. He can never think of anywhere else he would rather be. How can we not respond to that?

Judge Gaffney, an old friend of the family, describes it in this way: "Men liked him. Women liked him. I liked him." By phrasing it exactly so, the Judge reveals a bit about himself.

During the story, Elwood spends a good deal of time commenting on the beauty of the nurse, Miss Kelly, who has suffered neglect from her crush, Dr. Sanderson. Chase uses this pair to establish a few themes, an antagonistic duality of intellectualism and empathy being primary. Sanderson doesn't notice Kelly's beauty, doesn't listen to her. Sanderson doesn't listen to women in general (he ends up committing Elwood's sister Veta because of this), a trait he probably learned from his idol, Dr. Chumley

"I wouldn't let her talk to me," Chumley says as he describes his fantasy, "but as I talked I would want her to reach out a soft white hand and stroke my head and say, 'Poor thing!'" One may well wonder how many poor women are currently locked up in his sanitarium under the generic diagnosis of "hysteria." Doctors have been notorious about not listening to women since Hippocrates wrote his hypocritical oath.

Elwood mildly rebukes this attitude. Perhaps - and in the end, the audience will agree - he's the most sane and balanced person in the entire story. And it's not because of any lack of good intentions. When we examine everyone closely, we can see that not one of them really wishes anyone any ill. This story has no one character that we can point to and say, "That's the villain." Even the overbearing Wilson, the strong-armed orderly of the sanitarium, is only doing what he believes is best for all concerned.

But the story does have conflict. It arises from a lack of acceptance. The characters are unable to put aside their ideas of how the world should work for long enough to see that the world works already. Veta's acceptance of that fact is the resolution of the conflict.

Acceptance would do us all a world of good, right now.

I think that "Harvey" is supposed to tell us this: