Disability and Mairs Essay

Submitted By stephc6
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Pages: 3
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Disibility
In Disability, by Nancy Mairs, published 1987 in the New York Times, the author presents the issue that media is portraying people with disabilities as vulnerable and different from the average person. Mairs starts by addressing that she has yet to see a woman with multiple sclerosis and a lifestyle similar to hers on television. She then mentions a medical drama which unrealistically showed a woman with multiple sclerosis, as vulnerable and incapable. She includes more examples of television shows and films to show how they hide the person who has the disability and only expose the disability as a whole. Mair disproves the media's portrayal of a woman with multiple sclerosis by comparing herself to every other woman her age with a similar background. She gives examples such as "I smear my wrinkling skin with lotions. I put bleach in the washer so my family's undies won't be dingy." She shows the readers that her life doesn't revolve around her disability and she still manages to live a normal life. She also recognizes the issue that even though she is the average American consumer, advertisers still don't represent people with disabilities accurately or publicly. According to the author, she questioned an advertiser why he doesn't include disable people in his advertisements, and he responded that he didn't want people to think the product was only for the handicapped. Mairs, not convinced by the advertiser, explains that she believes that if a disability is depicted as an ordinary human issue, the viewer might feel threatened by physical vulnerability. The author concludes by reminding readers that disabilities don't consume who the person is and to view it as a normal characteristic.
Tone
Critical, Matter-of-fact
Discourse
Argument
Rhetorical Terms
Rhetorical Question: "If you saw my blind niece ordering a Coke, would you switch to Pepsi lest you be struck sightless?" (Paragraph 5)
Anaphora: "I menstruate, so I have to buy tampons. I worry about smoker's breath, so I buy mouthwash. I smear my wrinkling skin with lotion." (Paragraph 4)
Simile: "Actually, last summer I did see a woman with multiple sclerosis portrayed on one of those medical dramas that offer an illness-of-the-week like the daily special at the diner." (Paragraph 2)
Questions
Comprehension 1: What is the conventional
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