Disability

In ‘Disability’ by Nancy Mairs, the author talks about the different ways she can relate to people in society, and how she isn’t different from other people who tend to look down on her. Using words such as “crippled”, “multiple sclerosis”, “illness-of-the-week”, and “disabled” invoke strong emotion on the reader since those are words that they would only think of, not actually say to a disabled person. She also says “ours is the only minority you can join involuntarily, without warning, at any time” (Mairs 3). By doing this, she builds pathos with the reader, since Mairs was obviously unprepared to be diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Mairs also heavily criticizes the media for helping this stereotype take shape since their portrayal of a disabled woman escaping her problems was stopped by a “young, fit doctor” and into his “manly, protective embrace” (Mairs 2). By doing this, Mairs is showing how people can easily stop the dreams of others and can take control of them as they please. This says a lot about society, and how they look down upon people with disabilities. Continuing on, Mairs also criticizes people who act as if disabilities are not a big deal, calling them “TAPs, or Temporarily Abled Persons” This hit hard with society, since they would have never realized that they could be affected like this in so many different ways. In conclusion, Nancy wrote a pretty great piece, and I agree with most of the claims a generalization she makes.