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Effects of quadriplegia
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Quadriplegia is caused by an injury to the spinal cord and results in paralysis of the entire body below the neck. In the novel Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes, Will Traynor suffers from quadriplegia after an accident that changes his life immensely. Will struggles with his new life and fails to see the point in continuing his life. Many people develop depression when enduring a sudden, life changing event that impacts their lives in an extreme and negative way. Currently, the rate of accommodations for people who endure a long term illness, including the victims of quadriplegia, are increasing. The underlying repercussions of quadriplegia, caused by the limiting lifestyle it triggers, vastly changes many lives and leaves an abundance of quadriplegics with uncertainty about living. The emotional, psychological, and physical border crossings from the novel Me Before You connect with real, existing issues in today’s society.
In Me Before You, Will Traynor experiences an extensive change when he becomes diagnosed with quadriplegia for the rest of his life. Will is hit by a car on his way home from work and becomes a quadriplegic. He tries to kill himself, but his mother stops him and hires Louisa Clark in attempt to assist Will. Louisa is a caregiver to watch over Will and persuade him that life is worth living. She tries to change his mind throughout the novel, but he continues to aspire to go to Dignitas, a place in Switzerland that medically assists people who wish to kill themselves. When Will inherits quadriplegia, his life changes consequentially from wanting to live to wanting to die. He believes he has justified reasons to take his own life. Once someone becomes diagnosed with quadriplegia, they no longer have as much control of...
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...c changes. Some people undergo depression while others learn to adapt to the new lifestyle. With creating Me Before You, Jojo Moyes revealed a novel containing a widespread of border crossings. Will physically changed after he was hit by a car and came across many emotional conflicts with his new life. Louisa withstood a psychological change, accepting that Will wanted to kill himself. Aside from the obvious emotional border crossings it comes with, quadriplegia has changed today’s general public for the best. The community is more informed, active, and aware of issues concerning quadriplegia and other long term disabilities. In the novel, Louisa embodies the general public as she is actively researching while assisting Will in his quadriplegic journey. The novel Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes would only be a great addition to a curriculum respecting border crossings.
The essays, “On Being a Cripple”, by Nancy Mairs, and “Living Under Circe’s Spell”, by Matthew Soyster are both about how each author deals with multiple sclerosis in their life and their opinions on it. Mairs’ piece is a careful examination of her experience with MS and her perspective towards her future. In contrast, Soyster writes humorously of a particular incident he had with MS and artfully weaves his ideas about the disease in with his story. In both instances, the authors share the purpose of narrating their encounter with MS to the world to raise awareness. Both employ the rhetorical strategies of appeals to pathos and varying sentence structures to achieve this goal, some more effectively than others.
These two essays are about two dissimilar disabilities. Nancy Mairs and David Sedaris act as examples of how an author’s writing can change the tone and meaning of a narrative. Mairs message was educational and encouraging as she explained her life with MS and how society sees her. Sedaris use of experience and memories portrays his life with obsessive-compulsive disorder; what he calls “tics”. These two writers take similar topics and pitch them in ways so the reader can see the illustration behind them.
In her essay “On Being a Cripple,” Mairs describes her path of acceptance of her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis by declaring that she is a “cripple” in alternative to the more broadly acceptable terms: disabled or handicapped. Her essay is written with humor, satire, an open heart, and open eyes. Mair’s purpose is to describe her acceptances of her condition by using rhetorical elements and appeals, such as ethos and pathos, in order to allure her audience.
In her article “Unspeakable Conversations” author Harriet McBryde Johnson took time to inform and familiarize her readers with the details and limitations placed upon her by her disability. In her article she walked her readers through her morning routine. She told them about the assistance she needs in the morning from transferring from bed to wheelchair, to morning stretches, to bathing, to dressing, to braiding her hair. She does this not to evoke pity but to give her readers a glimpse into her world. She wants her readers to know that the quality of a disabled person’s life relies solely on another’s willingness to assist. Because those with disabilities need assistance they are often viewed as burdens. Therefore, they see themselves as
What comes into one’s mind when they are asked to consider physical disabilities? Pity and embarrassment, or hope and encouragement? Perhaps a mix between the two contrasting emotions? The average, able-bodied person must have a different perspective than a handicapped person, on the quality of life of a physically disabled person. Nancy Mairs, Andre Dubus, and Harriet McBryde Johnson are three authors who shared their experiences as physically handicapped adults. Although the three authors wrote different pieces, all three essays demonstrate the frustrations, struggles, contemplations, and triumphs from a disabled person’s point of view and are aimed at a reader with no physical disability.
In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared.
“I am a Cripple,” when people typically hear these words they tend to feel bad for that person, but that is exactly what Mair does not want. She prefers that people treat her the same as they would if she did not have the disease. Throughout the essay, Mair discuses her disease openly. She uses an optimistic tone, so that the reader will not recoil with sadness when they hear her discuss the disease and how it affects her life. In Nancy Mair’s essay “On Being A Cripple,” Mair uses her personal stories, diction, and syntactical structures to create an optimistic tone throughout the essay, so that the audience can better connect story.
At the beginning, she was trying to tell readers her stories during her medical school experiences and how she felt that due to her disability, how people weren’t giving her equal rights as others and how she overcame those obstacles. With Lisa I. Iezzoni’s reading, it showcases how disability is without a doubt attached to discrimination of disability by separation of identity, people. It adheres to the moral reflection that people need to garner which emphasizes “cultural perspectives on health and illness, social justice, and the moral dimensions of patient encounters.” (Jones, Wear, Friedman, 2014). In turn, health and illness as depicted in a narrative can uncover the truth and contentions of a phenomenon through repeated phrases, metaphors and perspectives as with the case of “Stand Out”.
‘“Now it’s my turn to make it better for generations that come after, which is why I’ve become, involved in disabilities issues”’ (Open University, 2016a).
Disability is a ‘complex issue’ (Alperstein, M., Atkins, S., Bately, K., Coetzee, D., Duncan, M., Ferguson, G., Geiger, M. Hewett, G., et al.., 2009: 239) which affects a large percentage of the world’s population. Due to it being complex, one can say that disability depends on one’s perspective (Alperstein et al., 2009: 239). In this essay, I will draw on Dylan Alcott’s disability and use his story to further explain the four models of disability being The Traditional Model, The Medical Model, The Social Model and The Integrated Model of Disability. Through this, I will reflect on my thoughts and feelings in response to Dylan’s story as well as to draw on this task and my new found knowledge of disability in aiding me to become
Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. N.p.: Vintage, 1994. Open Library. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
James Rachel’s explains in his 1986 work The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality that when death is the only escape from chronic and overbearing pain, it is justifiable to partake in or help someone achieve, assisted suicide (Rachels 312). What types of things cause ‘chronic and overbearing’ pain? Cancers, end-stage diseases, physical traumas, mental and emotional overwhelming pain; most people think that these types of abnormalities will affect older individuals, and for most situations, that is true. Yet, what can be done for the eight year old that is suffering from a neuromuscular disease? She has the mentality and emotional response of a toddler and she has never developed fully to enjoy life. Now she has come into the hospital and is only ‘liv...
The two essays “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs and “A Plague of Tics” by David Sedaris are excellent pieces of work that share many similarities. This paper would reflect on these similarities particularly in terms of the author, message and the targeted audience. On an everyday basis, people view those with disabilities in a different light and make them conscious at every step. This may be done without a conscious realisation but then it is probably human nature to observe and notice things that deviate from the normal in a society. In a way people are conditioned to look negatively at those individuals who are different in the conventional
Shakespeare, T (2013) “The Social Model of Disability” in The Disabilty Studies Reader Ed Davis, L D. Routledge: New York
Amanda cares about the health of her children. A childhood illness has left her daughter Laura with a limp. Being aware of this “cripple”, Laura has developed a mental fragility and an inferiority complex that have isolated her from the outside world (Unknown, Amanda Wingfield). If Amanda was not a good a good mother she would not worry at all about Laura’s health and independence. Instead she continuously tells Laura that her limp is not something to be ashamed of. “Nonsense! Laura, I’ve told you never, never to use that word. Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect. . .” (Williams 1985) Amanda was afraid that because Laura’s health problems she would never receive gentlemen callers because “she had to walk with a brace and was extremely shy” (Unknown, Amandaa Wingfield). Amanda begins to see beyond her daughter as a crippled and does not let any of her children mention it.