Nancy Mairs I Am A Cripple Rhetorical Analysis Essay

📌Category: Literary Genre, Literature
📌Words: 1030
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 10 June 2021

From ‘lame’ to ‘disabled’ to ‘differently abled’, there are several words society has devised over time which aim to describe those with conditions which limit a person’s physical abilities. On the receiving end of such words are individuals such as Nancy Mairs, a writer with multiple sclerosis, who in an essay on this topic, discusses why she chooses the word ‘cripple out of other possible epithets to describe herself.

 Mairs chooses the word ‘cripple’ because the other words which are commonly used to describe her tend to obscure meaning by euphemizing or otherwise minimizing the impact that Mairs’s condition has on her life. She prefers to be heard and understood rather than ignores and tread as if her condition is not to be reduced into nonexistence; it is to demonstrate to others her true reality- one that is jarring, one that cannot be sugar coated with phrases such as ‘differently abled’, and that demonstrates Mairs’s strength in her ability to, in her words, ‘ face the brutal truth of her existence squarely’ despite the seriousness of her disease. In this essay, Mairs establishes ethos through limitation and experience, and uses methodical logos to achieve her purpose- to urge the audience to see ‘cripples’ as simply what they are- as individuals who have lost a capability that most others possess, rather than as something which makes others more comfortable at the expense of the ‘cripple’. 

Throughout the essay, Mairs both draws clear limits to her expertise and demonstrates that she has necessary experience in the subject at hand to establish ethos. First, she does not claim to speak for anyone besides herself. At the end of her essay, she writes: “I would never refer to another person as a cripple. It is the word I use to name only myself.” By stating this to the audience, she demonstrates that her essay is intended to voice her own opinion of herself, which she is naturally allowed to hold; one may treat oneself however they please, and the validity of an opinion only needs to be questioned if it concerns other people. This way, by establishing a limit on her knowledge and claiming only to speak for herself, she make the audience more likely to consider her essay credible and worth acting upon. Mairs also demonstrates that she is qualified to voice her preferences and experiences with the word ‘cripple’- since she has MS, she has firsthand insight into the lives of those who may be described as ‘crippled.’ She makes this known in her essay: I am a cripple… I have lost the full use of my limbs.” If the essay had been written by a person who has never had such a disabling condition, the audience would be less inclined to accept their ideas on the topic- they would be just as able to speak about it as any of the readers. Since the validity of her statements rest on her identity and experiences as a ‘cripple’, their identity must be established in order for her to be considered credible, which, by including the statements above, she achieves. This revealing of her identity in the essay effectively creates her ethos, which allows her purpose to be better received by the audience. 

Having established her ethos, Mairs furthers the rhetorical appeal of her essay with her use of logos in her evaluations of each of the different phrases used to describe her condition. For example, when describing the word ‘ cripple’ in contrast with ‘disabled’, she states: “ “Cripple” seems to me a clean word, straightforward and precise. It has an honorable history, having made its first appearance in the Lindisfarne Gospel in the tenth century. As a lover of words, I like the accuracy with which it describes my condition:  I have lost the full use of my limbs. “Disabled,” by contrast, suggests any incapacity, physical or mental.” In this description, Mairs outlines logically the reasons why she prefers ‘cripple’ over other words. She examines the functionality of the word; how well it describes her state of being, and whether the word empowers her. Her reasons for rejecting words and phrases which are not ‘cripple’ are that they stray too far from her intended purpose in using them, and therefore logically should not be used. She furthers this point with her explanation of of why she dislikes the phrase‘‘differently abled’- “But I don’t care what you call me, so long as it isn’t “differently abled,” which strikes me as pure verbal garbage designed, by its ability to describe anyone, to describe no one. I subscribe to George Orwell’s thesis that “the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” And I refuse to participate in the degeneration of the language to the extent that I deny that I have lost anything in the course of this calamitous disease; I refuse to pretend that the only differences between you and me are the various ordinary ones that distinguish any person from another.” Once again, she explains that the words do not explain her condition. ‘Differently abled’ dismisses a large part of the implications that Mairs’s disorder has on her everyday life; it implies that MS has not taken away anything from her. Therefore, she chooses not to use it. Since Mairs logically and methodically discusses each of the words, objectively stating the function of each the effects that each has on her, Mairs shows that other words which are conventionally more appealing in truth obscure meaning, and that the more one attempts to minimize her disability, the less truthful their description becomes. Only by seeing her for what she truly is, jarring as it may be, can she truly be seen or heard, according to her analysis of each word or phrase. Her disability clearly affects her life a great deal, and she argues that this should not be forgotten. This, in essence, is her purpose, and, through her logical examinations which reveal the emptiness of the words which are less disconcerting, she demonstrates to the audience its validity. 

To achieve her purpose, which is to allow the audience to understand that ‘cripples’ such as herself should not have their disabilities be viewed as less impactful and serious as they are,   Mairs employs ethos to establish her ability to speak on the topic and logos to reason with the audience why more jarring descriptions may be more truthful- the less inflammatory the word, the less it describes her, and therefore her disability affects her a great deal. Through the use of these techniques, Mairs demonstrates that others should treat disabilities, while it may be uncomfortable, simply for what they are. 

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