There is not one person on this earth that is born the same. Everyone is different. One thing that people battle with is discrimation. There are lots of people born with different kinds of disabilites. There are some cruel people in the world that treats people with a handicap differently. People ask all the time "Why can we all not be treated equal?" In the story "The life you save maybe your own," written by Flannery O'Connor, she uses insights, powerful moral messages, and a sense of tragic realities of modern life. She uses her writing to try and point out spiritual feelings of the modern world. She hightlights character with morals and intellectual capabilities. As the story begins, the old woman and her mentally handicapped …show more content…
Shiftlet tells her that he is not able to get married because he does not have any money. She expains to him that her daughter does not know any difference. She tells him that she is going to pay for the car to get painted by saturday so they can go to the courthouse and get married. She also offers him money for the modest honeymoon that he could have. With that offer she has convinced him to marry her daughter. That saturday, the three of them drove down to the courthouse for the younger Lucynell and Tom to get legally married. Tom was not satafiied with the marriage. He said it was nothing but a lady in a office, a piece of paper, and blood test. After leaving the courthouse they then drove back to the house to drop the elder Lucynell off. She was very pained to see her daughter leave because they have never been seperated before. But she kept in mind that she would be seeing her daughter in a couple of …show more content…
Shiftlet tries to make conversation with the young man, but the young boy doesnt care to talk at first. He makes the boy feel uncomfortable as he begans to talk about his own mother. He decribes his mother as " the best old woman in the world." He talks about how it the worst day of his life when he left her. Shiftlet begins to tear up as he is talking about his mother. The young boy tells him ": You go to the devil! My old woman is a flea bag and yours is a stinking pole cat." The boy then throws hisself from the car. Shiftlet is shocked that the boy had jumped from the car. Shiftlet kept driving slowly with the car door still opened. Shiftlet felt that the rotteness of the world was about to engulf him. He prays "Oh Lord! Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!" A few minutes later a storm cloud desends and it starts to rain. As the lighting strikes and the thunder rolls Shiftlet quickly steps on the gas and begins to drive out of
A year passes without any incidents and senior patiently waiting, knowing was once again junior’s mischief was upon them. Senior gets a call from Miss Daisy Windsor, her complaint about Junior was very sever and she had to speak with Lawrence Senior as soon as possible about his sons actions. Senior walked in and his flashy gold watch and diamond ring blinded Miss Daisy. She implied that he was a very wealthy man. She looked inside his eyes and saw dollar signs. Lawrence writes a check for his sons actions and a little more. He then walks out a very happy man. They had a deep connection and Senior realized he made a big mistake knowing he betrayed Mrs. Lawrence. The affair continued for 3 years. Mrs. Lawrence never found out, never even expected the
Clare provides different paradigms of disability in order to demonstrate the wide variety of views concerning disabilities. He states that the paradigms of disability "all turn disability into problems faced by individual people, locate those problems in our bodies, and define those bodies as wrong," (Clare, 2001, p. 360). The first paradigm model Clare explains is the medical model which defines disability as a disease or a condition that is treatable. Next, he explains that the charity model defines disability as a tragedy and the supercrip model defines disability as a tough challenge that individuals overcome; the supercrip model makes individuals with disabilities out to be superheroes. Lastly, Clare explains that the moral model defines disability as a weakness. In order to demonstrate the paradigms and how they overlap, Clare cleverly uses an array of popular examples. One significant example is Jerry Lewis' telethon. During this time, Jerry Lewis attempts to raise money in order to find a cure for a condition. Overall, his Labor Day telethon raises money to end a disability by finding a cure for the broken bodies. This telethon employs the medical model because it demonstrates disability as a condition that needs to be treated. In addition, the telethon employs the charity model because it shows disability as a misfortune. All four disability paradigms are known as the social model because they are the ideas that society has about certain bodies. When society creates these ideas about disabilities, they create unnatural
...ive most of their life as a perfectly able-bodied person until a tragic accident one day could rob you of the function of your legs, and you have to learn how to cope with being disabled. Mairs illustrates that being disabled is more common than the media portrays, and it’s hard to deal with feeling alienated for your disabilities. These three authors have evoked a sense of sympathy from the reader, but they also imply that they don’t want non-handicapped people to pity them. The goal these authors have is to reach out to the able-bodied person, and help them understand how to treat a disabled person. The disabled people don’t want to be pitied, but they still need our help sometimes, just like if you saw someone with an arm full of grocery bags having difficulty opening their car door. They want us to accept them not as a different species, but as functional people.
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
“I felt I could do good for other persons with disabilities precisely because I had authority from that medical degree.” This line makes the reader stop for a moment and really evaluate what has been said, due to the contrary effect that was intimated from the beginning. The switch from negativity to positivity demonstrates the change from the author’s feeling has changed and how society has changed.This revelation brings us to the end, how she said she hopes the next generation will see things differently, “Disability right thus aren’t something we seek only for others. We must also seem them for the ones we love and for ourselves.” The author stating this at the very end reflects people who have the disability need to help themselves and have disability right, not just looking for help from others.
Flannery O’ Connor was educated at the Georgia State Women’s College, and she also attended Iowa State. O’Connor wrote her first piece of literature when she was twenty-seven years old, and she expresses her personal convictions and views in her writings. O’Connor often has characters in her literature that are disabled in some way, and most of the time, she portrays sympathy for these characters. O’Connor died from an uncommon disease called lupus, and she lived with this disease most of her life (“Flannery” 1050). “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” is a story about a traveler, Mr. Shiftlet, who marries a mentally challenged girl to get an automobile and money from the mother of the girl. In the end, Mr. Shiftlet ends up abandoning the girl. In “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” O’Connor uses duality to show that people and things can have two sides.
As human beings, we like to make sure never to offend or judge anyone. We even have sayings like “never judge a book by its cover”. A metaphor that is often said whenever trying not to judge someone based on their outward appearance; however, it is not often that people practice what they preach. We judge people based on external factors within seconds. Even though we know what people see on the outside is not a defining factor or who we are as people. Nancy Mairs, author of On Being a Cripple, has to live through this every day. She knows this truth very well, and lives proudly with the fact that as she is disabled. Mairs is admirable for choosing to call herself a “cripple” and not be ashamed of it. Though the word is derogatory and a word that is avoided by society, Mairs identifies herself as a cripple because that is what she is. In explaining her disability, she says, “I haven’t always been crippled, ... to be whole of limb is ... infinitely more pleasant and useful. and if that knowledge leaves me open to bitterness … the physical soundness I once enjoyed is well worth the occasional stab of regret” (Mairs 186). What really
In the text “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O’Connor, a common mood emerges from the somewhat humorous yet unfortunate work. A mood of grotesqueness among the characters and overall story as it presents itself, generally, making the audience feel quite uneasy and uncomfortable while reading it. Grotesque is a literary style, which comically and somewhat repulsively represents a distorted character or a series of twisted actions or thoughts that embody a character. The text creates a grotesque mood simply because the actions carried out by the characters resemble an extreme sense of despair and uneasiness, yet the way in which it is executed is somewhat funny and jocular to the reader, therefore creating an awkward overall mood
Disabilities can come in many forms and can cause many attributes of a person to shift or change over the course of time. Webster’s Dictionary defines disability as “a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities,” as well as, “a disadvantage of handicap, especially one imposed or recognized by the law.” In the short story by Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People,” we can see described one such person. Joy-Hulga shows both mental and physical conditions of her disability, but also the bravery to overcome her disability. Flannery O’Connor does a fine job showing the readers the difficulties of living with and overcoming a disability.
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
This quote is exactly what I am going to describe to you. Everyone deserves to be treated the same way Just as we have had to accept people around the world that are different race. We also have to accept people who are suffering with mental disabilities. In this paper I’ll go over a few things that happened in the 20th century. These things made it, so people with disabilities can be able to work, get an education, and live on their own.
To inspire and influence others, a leader must possess many skills and abilities. As motivational speaker Peter Northouse, states, “a leader should be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant” (Northouse, 2013) Moving an entire group of individuals toward a singular goal is a considerable undertaking. Without effective communication skills and a clear vision of what needs to be accomplished, one will feel like they are trying to herd cats rather than leading.
The disabled are dealing with problems every day of their lives that cannot be fixed. Although Shriver understood that, she did not understand why society would even think to treat the disabled differently, even if they had issues. They had no control over that. She finally came to the conclusion that she needed to make a difference. Shriver tremendously wanted people to look at the disabled differently; they are humans too.
Disability is an topic that has produced conflict, and is viewed very differently from either side. For able-bodied people to truly understand what disabled people go through they need to see disabled people more; see their lives. If seeing disabled people more often became reality, they would be viewed as normal more, and it would make interacting easier for both sides. Disabled people have a hard life, but it does not mean it is not worth living. Nancy Mairs, Andre Dubus, and Harriet McBryde Johnson all have physical disabilities, and have written about their experiences and views. In their writings, they touch upon both similar and different points. A very present similarity between the authors is they all play to the same audience. In their messages, both Mairs and Johnson agree that able-bodied people automatically assume that disabled people have a lower quality of life or are unhappy. The strategies used by each author plays to their message, and aids them in getting across their position. Disability isn’t always easy to understand, and these authors help illustrate that.
This is the underlying theme in the essays “Disability” by Nancy Mairs, “Why the Able-Bodied Just Don’t Get it” by Andre Dubus, and “Should I Have Been Killed at Birth?” by Harriet Johnson. 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.