Disability Essay AP

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Disability: No Longer a Hindrance

        Disability is a term that, in today’s society, immediately conjures up negatively connotated images in one’s mind; stereotypes of disabled people are that they are mentally challenged, incapable, and should be pitied. In this respect, society is ignorant. Most of the disabled beings are just normal people who have either been the victims of traumatic accidents or the victims of incapacitating diseases. These are normal people who are just physically handicapped, yet continue to see society turn its back on them. Nancy Mairs, Andre Dubus, and Harriet Johnson are three disabled authors who have experienced the prejudice of society. Through their essays, they convey a powerful message to society that the disabled are perfectly capable of living and expressing themselves as normal people.  Mairs, Dubus, and Johnson all have differing views on the disabled, but they all use similar resources of language to communicate their message; their use of life experiences, exemplification, and emotional tones persuasively express their viewpoints to the reader.

        Nancy Mairs is crippled with multiple sclerosis, yet knows she is as fully capable as another, non-disabled human being. She is very astute, and it is for this reason she openly criticizes the media in a sarcastic and disgusted tone. Mairs argues that the media needs to stop treating disabilities as such a negative thing, and accept it as normal. She exemplifies that while ordinary people have popular celebrities and people they can relate to, the modern media has nothing the disabled can connect with. When one cannot relate to anything, one might believe that “there is something queer about you, something ugly or foolish or shameful...you might feel as if you don’t exist.” Powerful diction is used to convey her message that the media refuses to acknowledge disabled people as part of a normal society because “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. If it is effaced completely, or at least isolated as a separate ‘problem’, so that it remains at a safe distance from other human issues, then the viewer won’t feel threatened by her or his own physical vulnerability.” Not only is this statement teeming with sarcasm, but it introduces Mairs’s opinion about ordinary people; people hate disabilities, but everyone will eventually become disabled, so “it will be a good bit easier psychologically if you are accustomed to seeing disability as a normal characteristic, one that complicates but does not ruin human existence.” I partially agree with Mairs; disability is not a horrendous characteristic, and it is one people should not be afraid of. Because it is so common, the media should definitely be willing to show it. The media does have a strong influence on how people view minorities such as the disabled people. I work with disabled people in a program called NEHSA (New England Handicapped Ski Association) and help the disabled learn how to ski. They are perfectly normal people with physical disabilities, and are just trying to enjoy life to the fullest. However, Mairs’s cynical look at ordinary humans is very biased, and I believe that a disability should not become the focus of peoples’ lives.

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        Andre Dubus was a perfectly normal man, who unfortunately ended up in a car accident that took away the use of his legs. Like Mairs, Dubus relies upon exemplification and anaphora when expressing his opinion on the “able-bodied”. This use of anaphora relies heavily upon pathos. “The quadriplegic will not walk. He will forever depend on someone. He cannot sit on a toilet, he cannot wipe himself, or shave, shower, make his bed, dress. He will use a catheter. He cannot cook. He will not feel the heat of a woman, except with his face.” Dubus expresses what a cripple ...

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