The Man Who Lost His Body

Many people these days take their health and body for granted. Imagine losing the ability to walk suddenly due to an accident or a disease. This is exactly what had happened to Nancy Mairs, author of the essay “On Being a Cripple.” She herself had lost her ability to walk normally when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis or MS, a chronic disease that attacks the central nervous system. Her essay talks about her life and dealing with MS. The purpose of the essay is to show how being crippled affects your life and how to stay positive and deal with it.

The writer of “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs, describes her life as difficult, but not entirely worth the cure. The writer struggles with multiple sclerosis, a chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system, in which had weakened the left side of her body into wearing a cane. She experiences society pressures, false interactions, and many hard situations of having a body that hardly works. However, she carefully names herself as a “cripple”, and remains proud with being just that. The author never had any control over receiving this disease, however she had enough control in order to keep living with it.

How would people act or feel if their body is slowly weakening? Nancy Mairs, The author in the story “On Being A Cripple” shows that being a cripple does not make you different than anyone else. She also shows the reader that discriminating yourself will not just make it worse but it will be a disaster. To her she is a normal person but to others they see a “disabled” or “handicapped”.By using her experience on being a cripple, Mairs effectively draws the audience into her argument and shows them the good and the bad side of her condition. She uses many strategies that will make it easy for the readers to understand her essay. Mairs uses vivid descriptions, experience and her emotion to describe her life as

The featured film documentary called ‘Murder Ball’ directed by Dana Ruben and Alex Shapiro focuses on Mark Zupan and Joe Soares life of a Quadriplegic person. I have responded to the main characters and their situations including how they make me feel about the lives of Quadriplegic people and how they deal with it during their lifetime. My overall impressions about Mark Zupan and Joe Soares lives as a quadriplegic has encouraged me to respond not to feel sorry for them but to gain respect and be inspired .I will be discussing the film techniques to support my ideas in the documentary.

In Thomas Hardy’s “The Man He Killed,” the persona writes the piece in first person, giving the story an unknown narrator, and also adding strength and a deeper connection with the reader. This allows for the story to be seen as one person to another, rather than words you are reading off of a page. He uses undetailed imagery in the second stanza, "And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me. And killed him in his place."(Hardy 7,8) by not showing a clear statement describing the setting or even the weapon used to commit the killing.

Spinal cord injury is a sudden and devastating event for patients. The injury can be extremely debilitating and it may require a significant alteration in lifestyle post injury. P.R. has sustained a relatively high level (C6) spinal cord injury, which makes him very limited functional capacity. He will go through grieving process followed by anger for the loss of function and independence. This may be especially difficult for P.R. because he is a young man in his thirties who sustained a debilitating injury in a foreign country without any support from family and friends. Spinal cord injury has left P.R. unable to move his entire lower extremities and trunk muscles. He is unable to do the most basic activities, such as feeding and bowel movement without the help of a caregiver. For a young man who was active and completely independent, it is very difficult to accept this reality. It should also be noted that most of the nursing staff are females, which further damages his male ego for having total dependence.

Perhaps one of the most disgusting accusations one can receive today is “You’re racist!” However as disturbing as racism is, it is just one of the many mediums in which people use to control others. Whether the motive is race, religion, nationality, financial standing, or even gender, in every society, certain groups of people have always been oppressed. The culprit of seemingly unnecessary and ignorant oppression is human nature itself. Humans will always experience the need to feel superior, and for that reason, similar connections can be made among those people living under oppression thousands of miles and centuries apart from each other. “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright, “Sweat” by Zora Neale

Shortly after watching Aimee’s video and while visiting a physical rehab hospital in Newnan, GA, my niece gasped and expressed deep sympathy after seeing a man who had recently lost a leg. Seeing an opportunity to educate her mindset, I explained Aimee’s video and discussed the main points that had impacted my own language and thought processes that I’ve had to reprogram.

He has the strength of 10,000 men, he can soar as fast as an eagle, his laser vision eyes can melt titanium, he is...Marker Man!!!

Christopher Reeve's story as told in "Nothing Is Impossible" is an inspirational story that tracks his life from his paralysis and onward. During this time, Reeve went through vital stages of self-doubt, self-importance, and generally questioned the significance of life. Through the encouragement of his family and the doctors, Reeve went through a mind-changing process that altered his life for the better, and helped him to master the impossible. In this autobiography, Reeve wants to inspire disable-bodied individuals and illustrate that they have choices they can make. In “Nothing is impossible”, Christopher Reeve elaborately explains his emotions, experiences and thoughts of his injury, and how his family and friends came alongside him. Reeve structures his autobiography by linking his current situation with extracts of speeches from his past in order to examine how he thought prior to his injury, his reaction immediately following the injury, and his slow journey towards hope. In order to evaluate the inspirational nature of the text, it is critical to examine the struggles he went through as he passed through the process of pre-injury, injury, and post-injury.

The Man Who Was Almost a Man, tells the story of a young seventeen year old teenager, named Dave Saunders, who finds himself struggling with the need to be taken seriously as an adult, while still being seen by his community, as merely a boy. Published in 1961 and written by Richard Wright, this short story focuses on the common struggle of young African American men in the South trying to find their identity outside of the box that the United States society put them in at the time. Dave felt that in order to prove that he was a man; in order to receive the respect he thought he deserved from Black and White Americans alike, he needed to purchase a gun. This, of course, proved to be of more harm than good, as Dave found himself incapable of using the gun correctly, and what resulted was the death of his employer’s mule. Dave then, after creating a nonsensical lie that does not convince anyone, decides to skip town in order to avoid the responsibility of taking up for his actions. When taking into consideration the story line and its relativity to the South during the 1920s, when the story is set, it’s clear to see that Dave Saunders’ story is more than what it seems to be on the surface. Dave Saunders’ story is a reflection of common coming-of-age struggles, and even more than that, the common African American struggle of trying to find power when everything surrounding you, and society as a whole, is telling you that you’re powerless; a struggle that is still very

Nick Vujicic is and example of a man with no limbs who has overcome this adversity to encourage others. He has learned to perform daily tasks without any appendages. He uses what he calls his “drumstick” to get through life. He tells people to finish strong, work hard, and keep trying (Vujicic). If his parents had given him limbs, he would not be motivating kids all over the world today.

Jameel Pitts March 10, 2016 The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World There has always been the saying that it takes one person at a time to change the lives of others and eventually the whole world. One man, woman, or child has the ability to impact the lives of others for the better or for the worse, whether they are alive or dead. This theme of transformation and change is seen in the short story, "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," written by Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1968. It is seen because of the appearance of a deceased man who impacted the village to make a better living for themselves.

The doctors skillfully planned every step knowing that this was the first back surgery of its kind. They had seven years to re-design Arthur's spinal column to make him stand and walk once again. They planned to drill into both hips using his own body as spare parts, after removing five of the rotted vertebrae, and adapt his hip bones into a new spinal column. Time seemed to be eternity, even after the seven years that he had waited to remove his final body cast to see if the surgery had worked. Overwhelmed by excitement and fighting through excruciating pain, the day came to finally move and free his body from its petrified state. Miraculously he was able to sit up, stand, and even take his first steps in a long time. However, the amazed doctors had noticed something very odd about Arthur when he stood. They found that his torso was significantly shortened and it made him look like he had extremely elongated arms and legs. As they tested Arthur to see if this had made any difference in his body function, they discovered that he had super-human strength. They first noticed this when Arthur was in his early therapy sessions. His therapist asked him to push back on her hands to increase his flexibility or range of motion and he accidently pinned her to the floor instantly, where she lay stunned. The doctors rushed and asked him to repeat the task. Arthur reluctantly, believing that his hours of meditation and focused thoughts had empowered him to create such a force that even he could not control his own strength. Fearfully he complied and once again overwhelmed his audience who cheerfully applauded as he lifted up the hospital bed with one hand. One of the doctors mentioned that he had only seen that kind of strength out of the primates in the zoo. It dawned on them that they had re-created in this human an ape-like stature and strength completely by accident. There was no undoing it, what was done, was done

Armstrong begins his paper with a question for the reader of what it means to have a mind. It is well understood that man has the ability to perceive, to think, to feel, and so on, but what does it mean to perceive, to think, and to feel? The answer, he believes, lies in science. Seeing that science is constantly and rapidly gaining ground, he asserts that “...we can give a complete account of man in purely physico-chemical terms” (295?) Pointing out the fact that this view has been accepted by various scientists throughout time, he explains it is the most reliable way to approach the mind-body problem.