Disability In Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie

Only very recently has American society changed its views on the disabled and the dying. Up until the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, most buildings did not provide wheelchair access, and doors were not wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair in most homes. Disability exposes us to the fragility of humanity, a concept our society is deeply uncomfortable with. In the novel Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom presents the story of a disability that focuses not on the disability of the disease, but on the way in which Morrie’s character and status affects his experience of the disease. Morrie experienced a role exit as he went from his primary role as a professor known for his dancing and energy, and who was forced to be independent and self-sufficient from a young age, to bedridden and almost infant-like in his need for assistance as the disease took its toll. His role performance was affected in that he lost his ability to teach, and to perform activities of daily life, such as feeding and personal grooming. This created role conflict, in that he was challenged to accept the dependent status of someone with a degenerative disease, while maintaining the independence he had been forced to acquire at a very young age. However, Morrie never quite ascribes to the role of

This causes Morrie some distress, as the pills serve as a symbol of his illness. Symbols of illness come up again at later points in the novel, when Morrie tells of how he will eventually lose the ability to perform basic personal grooming on his own, comparing his need for caretaking with that of an infant. The wheelchair, the most prevalent symbol of disability in our culture, is closely attached to Morrie’s identity in the novel. The wheelchair imagery is present whenever Morrie confronts his disability or mortality, or when Mitch notices the decline of his old professor’s