164 Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning
THE QUEST FOR DEAF IDENTITY AND DEAF STUDIES:
CRACKS IN THE MIRROR
This section looks at the role of mirroring in deaf identity formation through reflec-
tions on the “quest of deaf identity.” One of the most prominent origin stories in
deaf studies is that of Abbé de l’Epée, a “folktale about the origin of a people and
their language” (Padden & Humphries, 1988, p. 29) that has travelled the world
along the French–U.S. axis (Jacobs, 2014). The English translation of a French sto-
ryteller’s version looks like this:
The Abbé de l’Epée had been walking for a long time through a dark night.
He wanted to stop and rest overnight, but he could not find a place to stay,
until at a distance he saw a house with a light. He stopped at the house,
knocked at the door, but no one answered. He saw that the door was open, so
he entered the house and found two young women seated by the fire sewing.
He spoke to them, but they still did not respond. The Abbé was perplexed,
but seated himself beside them. They looked up at him and did not speak.
At that point, their mother entered the room. Did the Abbé not know that
her daughters were deaf? He did not, but now he understood why they had
not responded. As he contemplated the young women, the Abbé realized his
vocation. (Padden & Humphries, 1988, p. 27)The vocation of Abbé de l’Epée (1712–1768), the priest who founded the first deaf
school in 18th-century Paris, was to teach deaf children. Epée recognized that his stu-
dents were using a sign language, the French Sign Language of the urban Paris deaf
community at the time (also see Lane & Philip, 1989). He developed a system of me-
thodical signs that used French Sign Language but mimicked the grammar of spoken
and written French. Epée’s school indeed had a significant impact on the lives of deaf
children in France, Europe, and indirectly also on the United States, whose experi-
ences of growing up in the margins of society with limited access to communication
have often been compared to the lives of enfants sauvages (also see Sacks, 1998).
More than being only about Epée, the myth “has come to symbolize, in its retell-
ing through the centuries, the transition from a world in which deaf people live
alone or in small isolated communities to a world in which they have a rich commu-
nity and language” (Padden & Humphries, 1988, p. 29). Padden and Humphries
(1988) emphasize the metaphorical strength of the tale, which, through the journey
of Epée, symbolizes the quest of deaf children to reach deaf peers and find the
warmth of the deaf community:
Epée’s wanderings along a dark road represent each deaf child’s wanderings
before he or she, like Epée, finds Deaf people. In every child is a Massieu,‡
waiting to be delivered to a community and to be taught its language... At
the end of this quest, as at the end of Epée’s search, is succor in the warmth of
the community. (p. 31)‡^ Massieu grew up isolated and with limited access to language until he became a student of Abbé
Sicard, Epée’s successor. He became fluent in French Sign Language and written French and became a
teacher at the school (Sacks, 1988).