Nancy Mairs On Being A Cripple Summary

In the passage Nancy Maria prefers to call herself “cripple”. She finds “disabled” and “handicapped” to be inaccurate of her condition. Nancy Mairs uses tone, word choice, and rhetorical structure to convey feelings on the term “cripple”. Nancy Mairs tone throughout the passage was neutral. Statements like “I am cripple.

n Nancy Mairs essay, “Disability”, she illustrates the lack of representation of people with disabilities in the media. While disability plays a major role in Mairs’ life, she points out the various ways her everyday life is ordinary and even mundane. Despite the normalcy of the lives of citizens with disabilities Mairs argues the media’s effacement of this population, is fear driven. She claims, “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of daily life is to admit that there is something ordinary about the disability itself, that it may enter anybody’s life” (Mairs 14). Able bodied people worry about the prospect of eventually becoming physically impaired.

In “Unspeakable Conversations” she details her experience. Harriet McBryde Johnson effectively uses the rhetorical appeals of ethos and pathos, along with her uses of first-person narrative and descriptive language, to support her argument that contrary to stereotypes, a person living with a severe disability can live a happy and fulfilling life. Harriet McBryde Johnson was born in 1957 with a neuromuscular disease. At the time of this essay, she had been disabled for over four decades. Born to parents who both taught foreign language, they were able to afford hired help but she knew it could not be for her whole life.

In her essay Nancy gracefully articulated her perception of her situation and chooses to label her as “Crippled”. The struggles that she goes through to in a day to day bases, for example when she starts off the essay by describing her experience in a bathroom stall and how she laughs at her own situation. She insightfully defines her being crippled in the way she pursues and interacts with the world. As I defined the word in a sense of being incompetent in day to day societal procedures which is exactly proven in the essay. She is slow and struggles in her day to rituals and she accepts it.

This quote shows that even though Mairs sometimes has difficulty accepting her illness, she knows that there is a growing acceptance of people who must deal with the difficulties that she faces. This ultimately lends a hopeful and positive tone to an otherwise serious and depressing section of her essay. This contrast in tone, but general feeling of hope is key to the type of emotions that Nancy Mairs is trying to educate her readers about. Mair is successful in using multiple rhetorical strategies to connect with the reader.

People with disabilities and their caretakers are stigmatized for not being able to keep up, but they are not viewed as not having a “real” disability if they are too productive. Instead of viewing this as a symptom for their disease or disability, Hillyer believes this is a healthier way of living, and she encourages her readers to adopt similar techniques for managing their responsibilities. She especially criticizes the unrealistic, fast-paced speed that women are expected to maintain, despite personal obstacles. Hillyer, having lived in the intersection between the feminist and disability communities for most of her life, emphasizes the importance of allowing women to abandon the traditional concept of a highly productive “superwoman” and instead replace it with the knowledge that every woman dealing with a disease or disability, in themselves or loved ones, is a

Nancy Mairs, a feminist writer who has Multiple Sclerosis, defines the terms in which she interest the most with the world. Nancy Mairs will name herself a cripple and not be by others. She will choose a word that represents her reality for example in the beginning of her story she mentioned about her being in the bathroom trying to come up with a story about cripples. She was in the handicap bathroom and when she tried to open the door she fell, landing fully clothed on the toilet seat with her legs splayed in front of her and she said “the old beetle -on-it’s back routine.”

People with disabilities are often viewed as less capable, less intelligent and not available to cope well in society. Mairs uses the different persuasive strategies such as ethos, logos and pathos to create a conscious awareness to build a world in which despite the differences everyone is treated with equality and dignity. She imagines her body as something other than problematic, but a reason to fight to build a world in which people wants her in. Mairs mentions in page 169 “I imagine a world where people, allowed the space to accept- admit, endure, embrace- their diverse and often difficult realities.” As Robert M Hensel, a famous Guinness world champion and a man with spina bifida said once “There is no greater disability in society, than the inability to see a person as

In this essay Nancy Mairs presents herself as someone who is crippled. Out of many others possibilities of names to be called Mairs states that she prefers being called "crippled" because it is more straightforward and precise. In addition she states that she would like to be seen as a tough person whom fate/gods have not been kind to. The word "crippled" also evokes emotion from people which is also what she would like. Furthermore Nancy Mairs does not like other words such as "disabled" or "handicapped" to be used as a description her.

The unsatisfying setting that appears around the ill woman unravels an understanding

The narrator is certain she is really sick, and not just nervously depressed as diagnosed by her husband, but she is confined by her role as a wife and woman, and cannot convince her relatives and friends that something is actually wrong with her. In the story the narrator says, “”If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the

MY PRIVATE BATTLE Living with chronic illness and pain is something that isn’t easily understood by people who are not going through the same thing. Moreover, the effects of illness are an emotional and personal daily battle. All of us with Fibromyalgia are not the same!! Not one of us has the exact same symptoms. We have a lot of the same, some are worse, some are less, but no two are exactly alike!

The poet successfully illustrates the magnitude with which this disease can change its victim’s perspective about things and situations once familiar to

W-7 – PROFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES 1. I chose these competences because as a nurse it is vital to maintain professional boundaries and still be able to provide the therapeutic care without personally getting attached to patients. 2. From the article I learned that it is ok to be present with your patient, and caring about what they might be going through as you provide necessary care and support, but not to excessively worrying about a patient in your personal life/home” (p. 407) 3.

“Single-Handed Cooking” by JJ Goode speaks about his disability and how although he acknowledges it as an obstacle it isn 't one they aren 't continuously ready to overcome. He uses the example of cooking. It 's a task that for most does not require the intense focus that he needs ,yet it doesn 't stop him from cooking dishes ranging in difficulty. With each dish he successfully creates its a way to prove himself, while the mistakes no matter the cause are a failure. Which is why he continues to tackle demanding recipes because each time he achieves a great end result its another accomplishment.