Although illness narratives are not novel or new, their prevalence in modern popular literature could be attributed to how these stories can be relatable, empowering, and thought-provoking. Susan Grubar is the writer for the blog “Living with Cancer”, in The New York Times, that communicates her experience with ovarian cancer (2012). In our LIBS 7001 class, Shirley Chuck, Navdeep Dha, Brynn Tomie, and I (2016) discussed various narrative elements of her more recent blog post, “Living with Cancer: A Farewell to Legs” (2016). Although the elements of narration and description (Gracias, 2016) were easily identified by all group members, the most interesting topics revolved around symbolism as well as the overall impression or mood of the post. …show more content…
Often we associate the colour blue with sadness, sorrow, and depression. However, it is also widely associated with calmness, peace and relaxation. One of the group members noted that each instance in which Grubar mentions the blue couch reflects some of these emotions (Chuck, 2016). At first, Grubar “collapse[s] onto the blue couch” right after her fall in the driveway. A few of the students associated the colour of the couch to the despair and sadness Grubar felt after her fall and struggle to get inside the house. After her visit to the hospital and being told that her recovery would take several weeks, she emotes that she is “marooned on the blue couch” again representing her helplessness and melancholy. The group agreed that the emotion associated with the “blue couch” appeared to change at the end of her story. At the end, as Grubar sits and contemplates, her emotions seem more calm and stable. Although the colour of the couch plays an important role on the interpretation of the authors emotions the couch itself could also be a symbol of her cancer. The group agreed that the couch was a constant in the story just as her cancer is a constant in her life, regardless of her remission. Therefore, the “blue couch” could represent Grubar’s change in the way she perceives her life with
“I am a Cripple,” when people typically hear these words they tend to feel bad for that person, but that is exactly what Mair does not want. She prefers that people treat her the same as they would if she did not have the disease. Throughout the essay, Mair discuses her disease openly. She uses an optimistic tone, so that the reader will not recoil with sadness when they hear her discuss the disease and how it affects her life. In Nancy Mair’s essay “On Being A Cripple,” Mair uses her personal stories, diction, and syntactical structures to create an optimistic tone throughout the essay, so that the audience can better connect story.
The story centers on two women, one terminally ill, the other a visitor to her sick friend. In order to divert attention from the true reason for t...
Almost everyone either has lost someone due to cancer or knows someone who has battled cancer, but you can't appreciate how much suffering cancer patients go through. The Autobiography of a Face gives us the opportunity to relate to someone going through this that many people do not understand. Lucy Grealy does an exceptional job portraying the toll Chemotherapy puts on one's body. Pathos is used in order to make her audience feel the pain that she is going through to connect her to the audience. In this book you can understand Grealyś true feelings which makes you feel apart of her adventure and not want
Symbolism is the element that plays the starring role in this production, coyly divulging the clues necessary to illuminate the reality of her psychosis. The physical triggers of said psychosis belong solely to the room she and her husband slept in; now a playroom, it had obviously gone through many other transformations as had this woman, who despised it (nursery, gym, playroom). More importantly, it is the wallpaper that has caught and held her mind's eye.
One of the main themes of this novel is the fight against cancer. All three of the main characters struggle with cancer. Hazel struggles with her terminal lung cancer, and Isaac has to have his eyes removed because of cancer. Augustus, who has already lost a leg to Osteoscarcoma, struggles with his cancer returning. However, they all learn through this that their cancer does not control them. They still live their lives to the fullest that they can, and make the best of what they have.
Shock, anger, numbness, denial, acceptance, and fighting for one’s life, are the general phases of grief through one’s experience with cancer (cancersurvivors.org). Although discovering about one’s cancer can be excruciating, an additional agonizing reaction to a sick person is how the others are affected and their one-on-one reaction to the person. Feeling overly pitiful to one’s illness can impair the situation for the one who is ill by emotionally making the tragedy feel additionally worse. Although the extra sympathy, empathy, and compassion Hazel Grace Lancaster is treated with in The Fault In Ours Stars are intended to comfort, these exaggerated emotions have the opposite effect, further isolating and reminding her of her limited existence, but concurrently, the reality of condolences is pivotal to Hazel’s life.
People with cancer often begin to define themselves based on their experience with their illness, this self-definition through one’s cancer is one that the characters fear in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. The novel shows how the characters strive to discover their identities, but despite that are still identified by their illness. The novel also makes the argument that young people with cancer are not any more virtuous or different than other kids rather, they are just normal kids living with an illness. Augustus wants to be remembered and also be more than just a boy who battled cancer, but despite his efforts is still identified by his illness.
As she spends more and more time isolated in her bedroom, with nothing else to occupy her mind, she gradually become fixated on the dreadful patterns of the paper and instantly foresee something else: the narrator eventually see a “strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous design”(77). The narrator’s bedroom being a prison becomes more literal as from figurative when the loneliness and social negation intensifies her need for an escape from the pre-set nature of conduct created specifically for her (a mentally depressed and unwell women) by the people in her life especially by John. Throughout the story, the narrator’s psychological breakdown goes from a typical depressed mind and lacked awareness of identity, to a complete madness and reversed sense of self-esteem. She gradually changes the place she has in the physical world and fights back the social rejection she is facing by turning away from reality in exchange for a world where she has total control and can act according to her own will. The author uses the yellow wallpaper as a symbol for representing the phases of the narrator’s gradual deteriorating
Patients have long lamented that their doctors do not truly listen to them. A new emerging discipline, Narrative Medicine, seeks to rectify this problem by teaching both medical students and doctors alike the value of empathy and through the use of literature how to listen, dissect, and reconstruct patient’s narratives. Although Rebecca Elizabeth Garden and Rita Charon, agree on many aspects of Narrative Medicine, Garden tends be more critical and points out more flaws in her work entitled “The Problem of Empathy: Medicine and the Humanities,” whereas Charon cites the numerous benefits of Narrative Medicine in “Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness.” Although Narrative Medicine is beneficial because it allows doctors to develop empathy, one should also realize the many potential pitfalls and complications that arises.
She’s been struggling everyday of her life for the past 10 years; battling and fighting this horrible disease has made it hard on her and her family. The cancer has now metastasized, making it difficult for her to take care of everyday responsibilities and participate in daily activities. Her 13-year-old daughter is watching as her mother suffers and becomes brittle and weak.
It had been a cold, snowy day, just a few days after Thanksgiving. My grandmother became immensely ill and unable to care for herself. We knew she had health problems but her sudden turn for the worst was so unexpected and therefore we weren’t prepared for the decisions that had to be made and the guilt we would feel. Where would grandma live? Would she be taken care of? So many concerns floated around. A solution was finally found and one that was believed to be the best or so we thought.
One of the first jarring uses of such harsh, blunt diction is in her third entry when she talks about the pattern and says the lines “suddenly commit suicide” (Gilman). She then goes on to discuss the color, calling it “repellent” and “revolting” (Gilman). She uses words similar to this throughout every entry: “atrocious”, “dreadfully depressing”, “constant irritant”, “torturing”, and “infuriating” are just a few examples (Gilman). Each one of those examples described the wallpaper. Gilman’s staggering word choice allows the reader to be able to understand and even begin to feel the same way her unnamed narrator does. She creates a disturbingly ominous mood which rattles the reader to the core. The reader doesn’t understand fully what is happening, receiving only hints from a very limited viewpoint, until the end when the pieces suddenly begin to fit together. Even then, the reader is left with an unsettling feeling and an uncertainty of what had just happened. Not only does Gilman’s word choice create a distinct feeling in the reader, but it characterizes the narrator as well. The narrator is supposedly writing all of this in a journal which means the words are her own, not the author’s. Creating an environment using such blunt, harsh language, forms an image in the reader’s mind of what type of person the narrator is. By making the narrator use this
The joys of having a loving, caring, and sweet grandmother, all stolen from me by cancer. The day of her diagnosis and the doctors giving her a time expectancy. Sitting in the room, Dr. Vargas mumbled, “Lucila Toro, I’m sorry to inform you have stage two pancreatic cancer.” As a child, I was trying to grasp this information of how all my beliefs in God could fail me, death I had hoped my
“A Story about the Body”, a prose poem by Robert Hass, is literally about a man who supposedly loves a woman but then finds out about her health conditions and then changes his mind. This poem, when I read it, was more like a short story than a poem. The poem uses imagery and a variety of adjectives which allow the reader to put themselves in the story as if they were watching it happen.
The novel starts off with a young 16-year-old girl named Hazel with thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. She serves as the witty narrator and makes death seem like nothing to be afraid of. Augustus Waters, a 17-year-old formally diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, is in remission but has lost a leg due to his cancer. From the beginning, John Green makes readers feel suspenseful as to when or if Hazel is going to die and break Augustus’s heart. But when Augustus goes back into remission, a twist is added to the story and Hazel becomes the healthier partner in their relationship. Hazel and Augustus’s love is put to the test as Augustus’s health deteriorates more and more each day. Readers are sitting on the edge of their seats, as they must wait to see what the fate of this courageous couple will be.