Think about all the physical feats your body can do and how you use your body every day. There are many people across the globe who do not have this privilege.
Hold that thought.
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.
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Soyster uses one when he asks, “Why have I clung to this ritual, knowing it’s dangerous and futile”(Soyster 2). This sentence marks the climax of the essay. The destination the author is taking the reader to all along. Using an interrogative sentence makes the reader stop and reason about how they would answer said question themselves. It is a very effective writing strategy for Soyster to get the reader to slow down and think for a minute about his idea. He forces them to take on his perspective of the situation and he implies what will follow after the sentence. Particularly, the reason behind his abnormal and unpractical method of taking his wheelchair out of his car. Mairs utilizes the interrogative sentence around the climax of her essay as well when she inquires, “What in my life would I give up in exchange for sound limbs and a thrilling rush of energy”(Mairs 5). Because Mairs inserts this sentence right after the climax of her essay, it is a factor in driving home her main argument. The sentence’s purpose in her writing is to engage the reader and have them constantly wonder what their opinion would be in the situation and more importantly, how they would choose to act if facing similar challenges. The fact that Mairs turns out to react counterintuitively to her multiple sclerosis is a curveball for the reader especially due to this question. As the reader has already pondered their response and rationalized it, the fact that Mairs goes against the status quo is a big element in her essay. Mairs’ technique was very effective and definitely superior to Soyster’s as she crafted it with more precision and had a structured setup for
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.
Her essay is arranged in such a way that her audience can understand her life - the positives and the negatives. She allows her audience to see both sides of her life, both the harsh realities that she must suffer as well as her average day-to-day life. According to Nancy, multiple sclerosis “...has opened and enriched my life enormously. This sense that my fragility and need must be mirrored in others, that in search for and shaping a stable core in a life wrenched by change and loss, change and loss, I must recognize the same process, under individual conditions, in the lives around me. I do not deprecate such knowledge” (Mairs, 37). Mairs big claim is that she has accepted herself and her condition for what is it, yet she refuses to allow her condition to define her. Through her particular diction, tone, satire, and rhetorical elements, Mairs paints a picture of her life and shows how being a cripple has not prevent her from living her life. She is not embarrassed nor ashamed of what she is, and accepts her condition by making the most of it and wearing the title with
Nancy Mairs - Crippled and Strong Throughout this passage , Nancy Mairs uses the word cripple to describe who she is and the beliefs of her condition. She does this by describing her condition in a few different ways: the opinion of others and the opinion of herself. As anyone should, she decides what her title as a person should be and she doesn’t listen or care for anyone’s opinion outside of her own. Her tone is very straightforward throughout the passage.
In summation, Mairs challenges the labels brought forward to certain individuals that are different from the rest of society. Examples being differences because of mental or physical disabilities. She prefers to be called crippled rather than handicapped or disabled because the last two symbolically express inferiority and weakness. She establishes her message thoroughly through the use of tone, diction, and
These euphemisms for her condition cause people to view her as something she isn't. Mairs believes that these words describe no one because "Society is no readier to accept crippledness than to accept death, war, sweat, or wrinkles." She continues her story of multiple sclerosis and the hardships she endured. Mairs goes into detail about how her life has changed since her diagnosis and how she has coped with the disease. She includes her need for help by the people around her but also delves into the fact that she can still teach and perform arduous tasks. She talks about her dependence on her family and how good her family treated her. She says she is scared. “...that people are kind to me only because I'm a cripple."(Mairs,8) Mairs hates that our society is obsessed with physical appearance and normality. She states that, "anyone who deviates from the norm better find some way to compensate." (Maris)This shows that she believes that American society has lofty expectations. She ends the essay by stating how she is getting used to having MS and how she isn't sorry anymore that she is a cripple. Mairs is thankful for what she has and the people who help her in her life. Overall, she is proud of herself and has recognized that life is what one makes it to be. Now from what you learned what do you
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.
“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.
As mentioned previously, the chances of becoming disabled over one’s lifetime are high, yet disabled people remain stigmatized, ostracized, and often stared upon. Assistant Professor of English at Western Illinois University, Mark Mossman shares his personal experience as a kidney transplant patient and single-leg amputee through a written narrative which he hopes will “constitute the groundwork through which disabled persons attempt to make themselves, to claim personhood or humanity” while simultaneously exploiting the “palpable tension that surrounds the visibly disabled body” (646). While he identifies the need for those with limitations to “make themselves” or “claim personhood or humanity,” Siebers describes their desires in greater detail. He suggests people with
This tone is also used to establish an appeal to pathos which he hopes to convince the audience of the fact that handicapped people are still people and not less than anyone else. A very prominent example of Peace’s emotion is displayed when he says, “Like many disabled people, I embrace an identity that is tied to my body. I have been made to feel different, inferior, since I began using a wheelchair thirty years ago and by claiming that I am disabled and proud, I am empowered,” (para. 15). This declaration demonstrates to his audience that Peace is honored by who he is and what disabled people can do and that he is tired of being oppressed by the media. Peace also makes this claim to support his thesis in the first paragraph that states, “The negative portrayal of disabled people is not only oppressive but also confirms that nondisabled people set the terms of the debate about the meaning of disability,” (para. 1). This is Peace’s central argument for the whole article and explains his frustration with society’s generalization of handicapped people and the preconceived limitations set on them. Peace’s appeal to pathos and tone throughout are extremely effective in displaying to his audience (society) that those who have disabilities are fed up with the limits that have been placed in the
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
Due to this disease the body is slowly broken down by affecting the central nervous system of a person’s body. The children depicted in the essay are probably an example how fellow human beings should be around a disabled person. They just view the disabled person as another human being and respect them the same way. The children are proud to associate themselves with Mairs and do not shy away from introducing her to the general public. This is what a disabled person requires: that all those around him or her should respect them for what they are and give them unconditional regard
It could be said that in modern industrial society, Disability is still widely regarded as tragic individual failing, in which its “victims” require care, sympathy and medical diagnosis. Whilst medical science has served to improve and enhance the quality of life for many it could be argued that it has also led to further segregation and separation of many individuals. This could be caused by its insistence on labelling one as “sick”, “abnormal” or “mental”. Consequently, what this act of labelling and diagnosing has done, is enforce the societal view that a disability is an abnormality that requires treatment and that any of its “victims” should do what is required to be able to function in society as an able bodied individual.
I chose this article because I can relate to it very well. My mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when I was 18. I’ve never understand how she got
In the essay “Disability,” Nancy Mairs discusses the lack of media attention for the disabled, writing: “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may enter anyone’s life.” An ordinary person has very little exposure to the disabled, and therefore can only draw conclusions from what is seen in the media. As soon as people can picture the disabled as regular people with a debilitating condition, they can begin to respect them and see to their needs without it seeming like an afterthought or a burden. As Mairs wrote: “The fact is that ours is the only minority you can join involuntarily, without warning, at any time.” Looking at the issue from this angle, it is easy to see that many disabled people were ordinary people prior to some sort of accident. Mairs develops this po...