On Being a Cripple Nancy Mairs’ essay, “On Being a Cripple”, has an emotional view on how she must cope with the life and struggles of being handicapped. Mairs strongly disliked her condition because it left her fragile and vulnerable toward her skills. After Mairs was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she was opened up to a new life that she had to adapt to. Her ability to perform tasks and to engage in various activities were limited by the declined use of her body parts. In the reader’s perspective, one can conclude that Mairs wants to give the reader a brief depiction of how his or her life would be like as a handicap. Mairs’ use of the word “cripple” is compelling because she adds a spontaneous description of what she had to cope with as a handicap individual. She defines “cripple” as a person who has difficult time adjusting to the struggles and situations that he or she must face in life, such as moving around and daily routines (putting on clothes or getting ready for work). She also finds the words “disabled” and “handicapped” to be ambiguous and different. These words were unclear to Mairs and she stated that disabled is resulted by a real injury or mindful matter while handicapped means to lose mobility in body parts. The reader …show more content…
Mairs refers to herself as “crippled” because she describes herself as immobile and weak. While others find this word to be offensive to most handicapped individuals, Mairs is content with being called a cripple (despite differently abled). Mairs did not like the use of the word “differently abled” because it appeared to her as “pure verbal garbage”. She believed that people do not use “cripple” because it would offend handicap individuals. Many people would use this term to describe the handicap, or they would use it to target wounded individuals. One of Mairs’ most interesting statements is that she also refers to the other handicaps as