University:
University of Michigan
Course:
ENGLISH 473 | Topics in American Literature
Academic year:

2022
Views:

273

Pages:

10
Author:

LGarrett

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I The Story of Illness A study of the narrative writings of the ill • • • • • • • • • • • ■ ■ • • • I I I Abstract My thesis is concerned with the rising genre ofillness narratives over the last couple decades. Its goal is to analyz e common aspects ofthese autobiographies that are unique to the genre and explore how they may cause us to think differently about the experience ofillness. I am analyzing two narratives that are very different in style, tone, and content The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Lucy Grealy's Autobiography ofa Face. The first chapter looks at recovery in the stories. It does not look at the physical recovery ofthe narrators, but instead at their struggles to develop content lifestyles. For Bauby, this involves redeveloping relationships and redefining daily tasks as he is forced to live with Locked-In-Syndrome, a condition in which nearly his whole body is paralyzed because ofa stroke. For Grealy, recovery involves learning to live with her deformed face since a third ofit was lost to surgery resulting from jaw cancer. The two narratives achieve that recovery in very different ways through their writings, but both narratives raise questions about how exactly a person can achieve recovery. Both Bauby and Grealy do not recover under typical terms; they recover by converting their perspectives on the world. Bauby's narrative shifts in tense and in time to reveal his recovery while Grealy's writing changes in its emotional tone as the story progresses. The second chapter will deal with another common issue in illness writing: the loss of authority. I examine a patient's general loss ofvoice (figuratively) and opinion because ofthe medical system. There is a short discussion about theories regarding how the medical system functions to control authority. However, both Bauby's and Grealy's losses ofauthority are exacerbated by Bauby's inability to move or speak and by Grealy's immaturity (the book spans the period between her diagnosis as a nine-year old to her late-teen years). In order to regain that lost authority and lost control, Bauby uses his narrative to prove his worth and value in the world while Grealy takes a different approach. Her narrator needs to prove her maturity, and she does so by accepting guilt for her childishness during the illness and by giving the narrator an extremely reflective and often self-loathing tone when describing her experiences. The third chapter uses the first two chapters' topics to explore the concept ofaudience in these illness narratives. What types ofaudiences read these books? Doctors also benefit from the books because so much detail about patient mentality is revealed in the writing. Fellow patients can benefit from these memoirs by finding strength in them and by feeling empathy with the writers. However, my research demonstrates that illness autobiographies are most strongly written for the average person-the unspecified reader. The authors hope to reach out to readers who may have been previously oblivious to the authors' stories, thus allowing the readers to develop an understanding and an emotional connection with the writers. Illness narratives are conversations. Readers sympathize with an author's struggle and often are able to relate to some aspects ofthe story or at least take some sort oflesson away from it to apply to their own lives. Some illness narratives, like the two analyz ed in this project, discuss very specific and very rare conditions. Yet, the stories are immensely popular. This is because the nature ofthe illness is not as significant in these narratives as the progression ofthe protagonist's struggle to fully recover from such misfortune, and how the manner in which the protagonist recovers may challenge the typical definition ofhealth.