Nancy Mairs Essay

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Joe Whittle Mrs. Dutton AP Lang/Comp 9 January 2013 Nancy Mairs is mentally resilient and passionate. She refuses to oblige in the society’s way of feeling conscience-stricken for those who are unfortunate, as in her case. She repudiates the very deliberation of social protection for her "unable" limbs. Mairs is an individualist who refuses to seek protection for her "crippled" body. The word choice employed by any writer can interpret or conceal any of the author's motives or secrets. Nancy Mairs uses insistent diction in which she reiterates words such as "handicapped", "disabled", and "crippled" in order to invigorate her self-definition across to the reader. Mairs uses a mainstream choice of language in her passage that allows her to be pellucid and categorical as simply stated in line 15, “Cripple” seems to me an immaculate word, straightforward and precise." Thus showing how "cripple" is a cold, appropriate, and meticulous adjective for herself. The simplicity of such a statement is what makes it immensely powerful. The well-educated Mairs, attested to in line 16 …”it has an honorable history, having its first appearance in Lindisfane Gospel” uses her diction accordingly to her story. She applies distinctive and variant jargon in order to be understood. A rhetorical structure, by all means, is admissible to this genre of explanation. Mairs uses allegorical idioms such as …”my god is not a handicapper general, in order to equalize the great race of life.” to show her sense of humor yet convince herself to be crippled and not handicapped. Additionally, Mairs uses this rhetorical structure to add clarification to her explanations. Mentioning "gods", "fates", and "viruses" in her mitigation gives it a 3-dimentional view that will allow more than just one group of society to interpret her. Nancy Mairs, keeping "cool" through her writing, refuses to

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