Juxtaposing Humour and Humiliation: Neurodivergent Poetics and the Endurance of Shame in Tito Mukhopadhyay’s Plankton Dreams

Abstract

Neurodivergent poetics provides a critical framework for understanding how autistic authors reshape narrative, language, and subjectivity. This article examines Tito Mukhopadhyay’s Plankton Dreams: What I Learned in Special-Ed through the lens of neurodivergent poetics, focusing on how humour and humiliation intertwine in his work to challenge dominant narratives of autism and intellectual disability. It situates Mukhopadhyay’s autobiography within the evolving field of disability studies, particularly in relation to neurodiversity, and highlights the radical linguistic and formal experiments that characterize his works.

The study employs a qualitative, interpretive methodology rooted in close textual analysis, self-narrative theory, and comparative disability scholarship. Findings suggest that Mukhopadhyay converts institutional shame into comic experimentation, exposing the absurdities of special education systems while cultivating new literary forms that affirm autistic ways of knowing. His humour operates not merely as coping but as critique, transforming humiliation into an epistemic tool for reimagining subjectivity. The article concludes that Plankton Dreams demands an expanded hermeneutics attentive to nonlinear, excessive, and experimental forms, positioning neurodivergence as a generative force within both literature and cultural theory.