Comparing The Works Of Andre Dubus And Harriet Mcbryde Johnson

Nancy Mairs comes into view as a woman who recognizes who she is. Mairs knows she can do anything she sets her mind too. She doesn’t let her disability stop her from what she manages to do. She has put herself to deny what she has giving her a positive outlook on what she can do. She says in lines 10-11 “I want them to see me as a tough customer.”

Claim: Beyond conventional sense, there is pride and beauty to be found in disabled bodies despite traditional societal contempt for such bodies. In conversation with Waldemar Januszcak: Indeed, the timeless artistic style that was used in sculpting Allison Lapper is criticism of long-standing exaltation of impossible physical ideals. It is the contrast in Lapper’s form and the idea of misrepresentation that exemplify the desperate human struggle towards a certain notion of beauty, and an equally subjective notion of ugliness. The irony is that in a sense, both types of bodies are exceptional: one because it can never be achieved, and one because it will never be desired, leaving humankind caught in the middle.

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.

In saying this, his avoids criticizing the women’s son while still getting across his point that he doesn’t know her son personally to give assistance. Johnson purposely utilizes both approaches out of excellent anticipation for the mother’s reactions as well as to prevent any further discussions with

Waist High In the World is a novel that focuses on the importance of accepting everyone with dignity and respect despite their disabilities and differences. The author of the book, Nancy Mairs purpose when writing the book was to create awareness and share her experience as a “cripple” in order to create consciousness and understanding of those who are going through the same process. Mairs uses different persuasive strategies to convince readers to want a world with people like her in it, this includes the use of pathos, logos and ethos.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be, this phrase perfectly illustrates the truth in how our actions ultimately define us as human beings. Perception of reality plays an immense role in our society as a result of depending on how people perceive us, we act accordingly in order to conform. Ultimately, when interacting with others, we alter our behavioral patterns in order to mimic aforementioned group’s perception of who they are, which is often a delusion.

Murphy lacks mobility and sensation in his lower body other than the feeling of occasional muscle spasms, and has limited movement in his upper body below the neck including his arms. Murphy writes the story as it recounts events throughout his entire life, from childhood onwards. He was sixty-two when he wrote the novel. The story provides Murphy’s anthropological commentary on the life of a person with a disability and how society views and treats people with disabilities (Murphy, 1990). Murphy’s performance patterns both support and inhibit his occupational engagement.

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.

When people hear handicap they think not able to care for themselves. Nancy wants to be known as a tough individual able to take care of herself. The reader can feel the agony of what Nancy is feeling. The tone of this passage is determination and agony. Nancy feels that cripple is more stronger word than “handicap” or ‘disabled.”

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.

In Margret Atwood’s “Lusus Naturae,” set in the 1800’s, a period where a multitude of people remained annexed by those they loved due to ailments that were deemed uncommon; to illustrate this phenomenon Atwood engages us through the intertwining story, told by the protagonist, who is kept unnamed. The protagonist is not only affected by her physical disease, but also the psychological affects from remaining isolated from her community. The tale is crafted to criticize how severely society treats others in the face of diversity and disability. The protagonist not only accepts the abuse, but she also agrees with it because instead of viewing herself as someone who has worth, she only sees herself as an inhuman burden. Through obstacles our narrator faces, because of her disease, we can see how truly cruel society can be.

To explain this further, he walks her through what the request would have resulted in. The situation, in his eyes, is that he was asked to “solicit a great man, to whom [he] never spoke, for a young person whom [he] had never seen, upon a supposition which [he] had no means of knowing true.” He does this to show that he is willing to share his perspective and that he respects her enough to walk her through it, instead of blatantly saying no without any reason. The mother’s request is logically reasoned inductively to be irrational, leaving him no possible reason or possible procedure to accomplish the task at hand. While it may not have been this extreme, Johnson effectively and logically convinces the mother that she made a mistake in drafting such a letter.

Scott Hamilton once stated, “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” Disability is only an obstacle in a person's life, but it does not set the identity of that person. John Steinbeck's novel shows how disabled people are treated differently by writing about their heartbreak and sorrow. Many individuals with disabilities feel that a disability is a wall blocking them from achieving their goals. In our society, people are told what to be and what to do with their disability, but one should have the choice to carve their pathway to success.

Within Sheila Black’s Passing on my Disability is the opinion that a disadvantage, like having a disability, does not mean the withdrawal of a person from what would be considered an ordinary life. In the opening of Black’s essay, the author mainly focuses on laying down the foundational knowledge required to understand her story, including her family and her condition, X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) — a form of dwarfism — that debilitated herself and two of her children. During the most of the middle of her essay, Black proceeded to further elaborating on her and her children’s life. The author mentions many of their difficulties and pains, such as when Black writes on the difficulty of seeing her “loved one [with] that psychic pain” everyday

And a disabled person’s ambition is like all other human beings, the looks of pity and compassion negatively affect that ambition. People should embrace the disabled person and give them a helping hand, and they should have laws, which defend their rights, which should be respected. However, most societies do not have laws that ensure an equal life for the disabled population. It is a shame that the rights of the disabled people has turned many times to mere slogans.