Nancy Mairs On Being A Cripple Summary

During a meeting, Ehrenreich expressed her complaint about the vacuum; however, when she looks towards the other employees, she notices the silence of the other employees. Ehrenreich looked towards the other employees for some support in the concerns expressed in the meeting, but instead finds them silent in their own world. She describes one of her fellow waitresses, Gail, as her role model, but at a meeting, she “stares sorrowfully at a point six inches from her nose” (pg 131). Though Ehrenreich viewed Gail as someone she can look up to and model after in her current occupation, Ehrenreich observes a moment where Gail is detached from the meeting’s concerns. Ehrenreich uses her observation of her fellow employees to strengthen her appeal to pathos. She builds her focus on pathos by describing the situation where she experienced the lack of support from her coworkers. Ehrenreich looks for support from her coworkers to help enforce the concern amongst everyone, but finds that everyone impartial to what is being discussed. Even her coworker Gail, who she views as a role model, did not offer her support for the concerns

In her essay “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs presents her audience with an honest inside view of her life and perspective as a cripple, a word she openly uses to define herself. She brings her world to us by discussing a wide variety of things including language, family, and humor, and how these all relate to her life. Through various stories and insights, she allows her readers to gain an understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities. She examines the public’s view of the disabled, as well as the views they have of themselves, and compares them to her own. She makes it clear that she is not to be defined solely by her disability. In discussing honestly her views, as well as

In “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs, an American poet and essayist, describes her personal battle with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system with no known cure. She begins with a personal account of falling into a toilet because she loses control over several motions. Mairs prefers to be called a cripple rather than a disabled or handicapped person, although she acknowledges that this is not the same as others’ preference. She explains her journey from being a young, active child, to losing control of her body and developing a blurred spot in one eye in her late twenties. As her body continues to break down, Mairs tries to stay involved by participating in activities like bridge and

In his essay, Malcolm X writes about how learning to read and write opened his eyes to the oppression that surrounded him and the world. Malcolm is a black man that was put in prison when he noticed that he felt uncomfortable when he did not understand anything that he read and that he could not write correctly. His incapacity to read and write was what inspired him to request a dictionary, something to write on and a pencil. That initiative changed his life forever. He copied down the whole dictionary, which helped him to learn words and their meanings. “ With

In Nancy Mairs ' "On Being a Cripple," she deliberates the relationship between the English Language, American Society, and her struggle with multiple sclerosis (MS). Mairs criticizes people for wincing at the word "cripple," and using terms like “differently abled,” because they lack reality and accuracy. She equivalents society’s inability to accept crippledness with death, war, sex, sweat, and wrinkles. Through the usage of ethos, pathos, logos and other rhetorical devices, she effectively tells her story and proves that there is power in words, from which she could come to terms with a new fact of her identity, and to accept the incurability of her disease.

In “On Being a Cripple,”  Nancy Mairs describes her life as a “cripple,” being treated different for her multiple sclerosis. She describes how society views her as handicapped or disabled both which are terms that the author dislikes.  Her viewpoint makes readers question their own beliefs on how the terms handicapped, disabled, or cripple influences a person to think differently about each term and its meaning. One of the reasons I chose this essay was because the author shows how different terms could affect the way society thinks about a person. Mairs believes that society often judge others based on their physical appearance and use the terms handicapped, disabled, or cripple to label. She argues that the outcome of this is creates an idea where being a cripple, or being disabled is considered a taboo where you're expected to be treated differently. Mairs claims that society i

A). The strongest characters in these two stories would be Nancy Mairs from “On Being a Cripple”. She faced multiple sclerosis for almost her whole life. It challenges her to live normally and she shows that illnesses are no excuse to give up on what she loves to do. She encouraged other to do not let diseases keep them away from what they loved most in their life.

In Nancy Mairs short story, “On Being a Cripple”, she reflects on her life handling her disability of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and how it has changed different aspects of her existence. She defines herself as a cripple despite the negative connotations the word may have. Over the past ten years, Mairs has had her MS slowly progress as her body deteriorates. She sees her life as fairly average, but seemingly small tasks have become difficult to her and has required help from her family. Despite their support, Mairs still fears that people's kindness is out of pity. The stigma around physical disfigurement and being crippled causes added suffering to her life. Although the disease dictates much of her existence,

In his autobiography, he writes about his time in prison and his frustration in not being able to communicate properly to Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X started copying words from the dictionary and everything on the page down to the punctuation and began reading books on history, philosophy, and religion. He writes, “I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. . . As my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying.”

In the essays “On Being a Cripple”, written by Nancy Mairs, and “Living Under Circe’s Spell”, written by Matthew Soyster, both authors strive to communicate to the reader what it is like to live with MS. Although both writers have a similar purpose, they both use exceptionally different methods of communicating their experiences with MS. Overall, Mairs’ essay proved to be more effective than Soyster’s, because of her varied use of rhetorical devices that all work together to create an effective argument. On the other hand, Soyster’s essay was less effective because he only relied on pathos to convince the readers of his argument.

In the world, 2.5 million people are diagnosed with M.S., and about 200 new cases are diagnosed each week (disabled-world.com). Imagine waking up with vision loss, pain in eyes, and back, fatigue, and impaired coordination. The worst part is that M.S. often ends in paralysis. Not being able to walk, always being singled out, the outcast of society. The physical side effects play a part in the psychological struggles in people's lives, as is the situation with Nancy Mairs an M.S. sufferer. In “I Am a Cripple,” Maris shows two sides of how she really feels, and how she says she feels.She feels mainly sad, and happy throughout her essay. Sometimes Mairs laughs at herself and jokes around about living life as a cripple to hide her feelings. In her essay she expresses that when people criticize her it does not get to her, she embraces being a different individual. Nancy Mairs’s explains in “I Am a Cripple” what it means to be a cripple, how she is treated, and how she thinks of herself. Mairs uses allusions throughout her memoir to represent how she really feels about being a crippled, including euphemisms to explain how she feels about words used to describe her disease.

Richard Rodriguez, the author of The Achievement of Desire, and Malcolm X, the author of Learning to Read, describe the ways their lives were profoundly impacted, as well as altered, because of their quest for an education. Rodriguez writes about his academic successes, while Malcolm X describes his education as self-taught. Achieving an education changed both men and both men pursued an education for different reasons.

In the end Barbara ended up breaking all of the rules she had set for herself but she feels that she did a good job at her project. She was alarmed by the way that some of her co-workers lived and felt that she learned a lot from her experiences.

By the time “A Doll House” was written in 1879, there had been many improvements in the lives of women. Although they were still greatly oppressed, husbands were no longer allowed to kill their wives for convenience’s sake, or at least would go to prison for

While, this allows her to come to know the world herself, she is also leaving behind the “doll house” to which she was forced into (cite). No longer does she have to put up the pretense of being a cheerful wife in a merry life, and readers see how independent this woman may