Book The Body Silent by Robert Murphy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Book The Body Silent by Robert tater - establish ExampleThroughout his book, he embarks on research among the disabled. The question remains is this truly participant observations nooky you distinguish an emic and an etic point of view in the narrativeMurphy writes both as an anthropologist and as a quadriplegic the kind of civilization the handicapped American must face is just as much a part of the environs of his disability as his wheelchair. It hardly needs saying the disabled, individu entirelyy and as a group, contravene all the values of youth, virility, activity, and sensual beauty that Americans cherish, however little most individuals may examine them. Most handicapped people sense that others resent them for this reason We are subverters of the American ideal, just as the poor are betrayers of the American dream. And to the extent that we depart from the ideal, we become ugly and repulsive to the able-bodied (Perring 2002) disable persons account for seeable memorie s that those with normal bodies of order are part of the disabled suffering world, they reside in a non-existent paradise and they too can be stricken at any given time. Murphy writes The violinist Itzhak Perlman, who suffers from the aftereffects of polio, says that when he is pushed up to an airline counter in a wheelchair, the clerk commonly asks his attendant, Where is he goingMurphy was a professor of anthropology at capital of South Carolina University when he became progressively paralyzed by an inoperable spinal pile tumor. Throughout his book, he provides accounts of his personal experience and case studies of others in society who are dealing with disabilities everyday. Disability is defined by society and given meaning by culture it is a accessible malady (Murphy 1987, 4). As he writes The Body Silent he is virtually quadriplegic, smash the keys of his computer with the eraser end of a pencil held in place by a universal cuff wrapped most his palm. He is still travel ing to Columbia to teach his classes. Murphy applies the metaphor of an anthropological field cutting to his experience This book was conceived in the realization that my long illness with a disease of the spinal cord has been a kind of extended anthropological field trip, for through it I have sojourned in a social world no less strange to me at first than those of the Amazon forests. And since it is the duty of all anthropologists to report on their travels . . . this is my accounting (ix). Drawing not only on his own experience simply also on research for which he received funding, Murphy instructs his audience in the metaphysics of his situation, and in the social as well as physical challenges of disability.Murphy took on his physical deterioration with eyes-open determination, a refusal to harmonize social limitations, and reliance on the essence of his selfhood--his mind. His account is a highly informative study of the physical negotiation of paraplegia and quadriplegia, and of attitudes and assumptions harbored toward those who are physically other. Murphy became a pioneer for rights of the handicapped and spearheaded the initiative at Columbia to provide wheelchair access and other aids. Peter Graham (1997) classified Murphys narrative classification of metapathography. According to Graham, metapathographies are not