Solitude, Death Or Success Essay, Research Paper

Solitude, Death or Success?

In his essay, “My Withered Limb”, Tobin Siebers begins by pointing out a small but very important difference between himself and other people. How do you tell your right from your left? The author states that most people require “an act of imagination”(1:1), or the use of some type of memory trick. Tobin, however, has a constant “compass”(2:1) of rightness, his polio ridden, deformed leg. Stricken by polio, Siebers describes the mental and physical solitude of the disabled as well as society’s tendency to view them as repulsive, useless objects.

Disabled people do not seek out each other’s companionship. When the disabled gather together they draw negative attention. According to the author, attention can be compared to “gravity”(11:1). If two cripples are together, they receive five times the negative attention a single cripple would normally receive; four cripples would receive ten times the attention. The gathering of the disabled seems to be forbidden by society, forbidden by “looks and ridicule”(11:9). Siebers states that “the solitude of the disabled is crushing”(11:1). In order to avoid bearing the weight of all this attention, the disabled simply accept their fate and put themselves in seclusion.

Furthermore, the disabled are mentally isolated by society. Healthy people fear they might be stricken with some horrible abnormality if they were to speak with a crippled person. For example, a small boy in a motorized wheel chair is inching along the wall of a hallway crowded with people. Everyone is talking and laughing, “but not one of them will notice, let alone speak to, the boy in the wheelchair “(11:11). But, he is ” immersed, day in and day out in the colors and details of other human lives, but he is always alone”(11:12). He is alone in a sea of people.

Additionally, the disabled have been subjected to abuse and violence since the existence of mankind. Everyone seems to agree that the disabled are repulsive and contemptible, which automatically makes them expendable. “In ancient Greece we were left to die on the cold mountain hillsides, in Africa we were food for beasts, in Europe, dropped down a well”(12:6). The Nazis first eliminated the disabled before moving on the to Jews. On the other hand, the fact still remains that these are people with feelings and thoughts just like a healthy person. Society sees them as too much of a burden, when in actuality they could be a productive, valuable part of society. For example, Tobin Siebers is a Professor of English Literature; he is also the Director of the Program in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan.

Unfortunately, Tobin Sieber’s essay dwells on the negative side of his disability. Siebers points out that his peers taunted him as a child. No matter how hard he tried, he was different from everyone else despite the fact that he tried desperately not to be. The author seems to have overlooked a few key facts. Tobin Siebers is a happily married man with children, a house, a successful career, friends and a social life. Many so called healthy people are struggling to reach this level of achievement in their lives and possibly will never achieve it. Maybe they could be labeled as “disabled”.