Allen (22) describes a rhetoric situation as a fundamental context of any rhetorical event consisting of a set of constraints, issues, and an audience. There exist different leading views of the rhetorical situation. One implies that problems are made silent by rhetoric to make conditions, another argues that situations lead to rhetoric, and lastly another means the rhetor as artistic of rhetoric that creates salience through knowledge. Therefore the author uses rhetorical elements like repetition, metaphor, and emotional appeal to explain a situation on being a cripple.
In “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs, Mairs tells the reader her thoughts with her struggles with multiple sclerosis. Mairs uses rhetorical elements to show she has accepted her disease by using the word “cripple” to define herself, her tone with her abilities, and her way of becoming content since her diagnosis.
Calling herself a “cripple” instead of the politically correct “disabled” or “handicapped” shows how straightforward she is about her condition. Mairs called herself a disabled person in the first sentence. “The other day she was thinking of writing an essay on being a cripple.” (Chouinard " Aligrant 137-166)Unsure of her motives, Mairs does state she may want people to “wince” when they hear it. Mairs likes the word “cripple” because it is a “clean word, straightforward, and precise.” While using a word like “handicapped,” Mairs describes as “deliberately been put up at a disadvantage” or “disabled” meaning “incapacity, physical or mental.”
Mairs finds amusement in her abilities, both in what she can and can’t do. “Almost every pickle that she gets into as a result of her weakness and clumsiness- - and she gets into plenty- -is funny as well as maddening and sometimes painful.”(Kriegel 412-430) Mairs tells a story about how she fell out of view of her friend as they were walking, unknowing that she had hurt herself until she got home. She found amusement when she stated “she had dropped from his view as though through a trap door,” (Wilcock 1-11) shows how she can be amused in her inabilities in things like keeping her balance. Mairs also finds amusement in the abilities she has because people assist in ways that are unneeded. “Grocery clerks tear my checks out of my checkbook for me” is one example Mairs gives.
Mairs has become content with her disease as she has gotten older. She tells a story about being on vacation while a symptom of multiple sclerosis came. “Once the symptoms have appeared, the neurological damage has been done, and there’s no way to predict or prevent that damage.”(Wilcock 248-256). This shows that she is okay with the disease itself progressing because she did not immediately go to her neurologist.
In this essay, Mairs has used rhetorical elements to demonstrate the struggle of multiple sclerosis throughout the years. In many ways, she has accepted her condition, but in other ways, she has not. Finding amusement in her abilities and inabilities, using the word “cripple,” and being content with her disease are just three elements Mairs has used in this essay (Zola 167-173).
Conclusion
Being crippled is not a call, and one should accept the situation. Being crippled depicts that one can handle any situation or do any work. Mairs came into taking the case that led into her not underwriting her abilities. Therefore a crippled should be contented with his condition and use it as a weapon towards success.
Works Cited
Allen, Anita L. "On being a role model." Berkeley Women's LJ6 (1990): 22.
Chouinard, Vera, and Ali Grant. "On being not even anywhere near ‘the project’: ways of putting
ourselves in the picture." Antipode 27.2 (1995): 137-166.
Kriegel, Leonard. "Uncle Tom and Tiny Tim: Some reflections on the cripple as Negro." The
American Scholar (1969): 412-430.
Wilcock, Ann Allart. "Reflections on doing, being and becoming." Australian Occupational
Therapy Journal 46.1 (1999): 1-11.
Wilcock, Ann Allart. "Reflections on doing, being and becoming." Canadian Journal of
Occupational Therapy 65.5 (1998): 248-256.
Zola, Irving Kenneth. "Self, identity and the naming question: Reflections on the language of
disability." Social Science " Medicine 36.2 (1993): 167-173.
