Falling/Burning // Shoshana Kessock Summary:
The chapter I read was written by an author with bipolar disorder. They walk the reader through the complexities of the medical system as a creative with a mental disability. The chapter is an anecdotal narrative about their life, starting from a younger age, flying and falling and soaring and burning through the days. They share their experience with therapists, then psychiatrists, medication, then lack thereof. They sought out information about their disorder and were misinformed, under-informed, and poorly guided. The crux of the chapter is when the author explains their devastating ten year season from 2002-2012, which was ultimately “resolved” thanks to proper information and cautiously prescribed medicine.
A few quotes from the ten year period:
“Everything here is… hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch… this is hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that”
“That was the illness talking”
Summary of Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents // Keith Grant-Davie:
Keith Grant-Davie outlines what makes up a rhetorical situation in their essay, Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents. They begins by elaborating on the wholeness of a rhetorical situation, then breaks down that wholeness into exigence, rhetor, audience, and constraints. Exigence, as defined is, “an imperfection marked by urgency. It is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be”. Exigence exists in a multiplicity. It begs to ask the questions: what is the discourse? Why does it exist? What should it accomplish? Rhetors are not as simple as one would think. Some may be unidentifiable and are complex and multifaceted by nature. Audience, similarly, to rhetors, could be anyone. Anyone that could potentially be the audience, is. The role of the audience is persuaded by the rhetor and discourse, but at the end of the day, it’s still a conversation and the audience is a prevalent part of the rhetorical situation. Constraints are, “persons, events, objects, and relations which are parts of the situation because they have the power to constrain decision and action needed to modify the exigence.” Constraints are preset circumstances/models that a rhetor and audience are held to.
“…where the aim is not victory over the opponent but a state of identification, where writer and reader are able to meet in the audience identity the writer has created within the discourse”
In Reflection of both readings:
I found this chapter to be a accurate testimony to how mentally disabled folks navigate through life, in relation to creativity, medication, school, motivation, and frustration. It’s a tale so personal to this author, but true for many others. Through the scope of a “rhetorical situation”, the rhetors Shoshana Kessock, Alice Wong, and potentially others I am unaware of (are unspoken), are constrained by the length of a chapter, the english language, the obstacles of presenting a story as a disabled person, and the audience‘s knowledge regarding bipolar. I believe the audience extends much further than myself. The rhetorical choices made by the author lead me to believe that they hope struggling disabled authors to read their story. They persuade inspiration and hopefulness.