TOW # 2 Assignment - "Handicapped"

For my TOW this week, I read "Handicapped" by Randolph Bourne. Randolph Bourne was a writer and 'leftist' intellectual. He graduated from Columbia University, and was a student of John Dewey. He is most famous for his writing, "The State", and is best known for his essays. Randolph Bourne was also deformed in his face at birth; and also suffered from tuberculosis of the spine, which stunted his growth and caused his to write the essay "The Handicapped". The audience for this essay is likely young adults to adults, as it discusses the fleeting moments of life and of growing up. This essay is about the experiences of someone with disabilities. Bourne moves throughout his life, describing what each phase of his life was like with a disability. He explains how differently life was because of his disability, and how that it was not entirely a bad thing. His disability allowed him to cherish life more and form better and more meaningful relationships with the people around it. It also pushed him to try, and to not let his disability set him back from life. Bourne's purpose is writing this essay is to explain how disabilities aren't completely a disadvantage, and how important it is to constantly strive for what you want and live life to its fullest. The author does well to accomplish this purpose by demonstrating how he found his way to do just that. He recognized his disability and the disadvantages that came with it, but he also recognized the advantages to being disabled, and built on those. Bourne uses description, colorful adjectives, comparisons, and flashbacks as rhetorical devices in his essay. These assist in Bourne achieving his purpose by making his essay more descriptive, allowing the audience to be more understanding. It also helps him voice what he means more clearly, and gets the audience drawn into the essay.