Joshi 1

Bhanu Bhakta Joshi

Prof. Anita Dhungel (PhD)

English 625.2

25 Jan. 2023

Question no. B (1)

One of the most powerful forms of expressing, suffering and experiences related to

suffering is making story that is narrative. Patients’ narrative gives voice to suffering in a way

that supports biomedical line of healing. Doctors’ stories portray their experiences of conducting

operation, surgery or even the application of new medicines during the course of treatment of the

patients suffering from different diseases. The narration of feelings of loss, anger, frustration,

joy, and compassion in illness narratives are the stories of surrounding communities and the

readers find their own images. So these help to cope with the real life sufferings and apply in the

treatment process either in the biomedical process or in the humanistic models of treatment.

Illness narratives are significant in the study of chronic illness as means for understanding the

attempt of patients to deal with their life situations, and greater than this, the ways of facing with

the problems. Ann Jurecic opines, “. . . the accounts of illness have become central to the

literary branch of medical humanism” (2). These sorts of narratives are valuable to disseminate

experiences among the patients. This paper examines some illness narratives with special focus

on Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter.

Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a novella narrated in a dreamlike approach by a young woman

who falls ill, approximately dies, and revives. The protagonist, Miranda suffers from influenza
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that causes her hospitalization. The feelings of perpetual loneliness, emptiness, and depression

persist in her on hospital bed. Her inner psyche seems fragile, “There is too much of everything

in this world, just now. I would like to sit down here on the curb, Chuck, and die, and never see-I

wish I could lose my memory, and forget my own name” (214). She is in helpless condition and

almost losses her memory .The place is riddled with war, illness and death. The story takes place

in Denver in 1918, over a year the USA enters into the war. The war pervades every aspect of

life in Denver where Porter lives. Through the influenza-ridden life of Miranda, Porter reveals

her own diseased- life interconnecting with the false patriotism of Americans. Adam, a soldier to

whom Miranda loves, also falls ill and dies before she regains consciousness. Then she loses

valuable thing that is the loved one. Even in the end of the story, she does not seem happy to her

life at all.

In “The Steel Windpipe” Mikhail Bulgakov presents experiences of a doctor in the

operation of a little girl suffering from diphtherial croup. “Her throat is already choked with

membrane and soon it will be blocked completely” (270). The patient comes to the doctor who

qualified with distinction just forty-eight days ago. He consults different volumes of operative

surgery for regaining concerned practical knowledge. He is relatively young than other but he

has to complete his duty. “Only twenty-four years old, having qualified a mere two months ago, I

had been placed in charge of the Muryovo hospital” (270). He accumulates his knowledge and

experiences for discharging his duty. His team is destined to the operating theatre where the little

girl as a patient is waiting for her recovery. Then he narrates the whole operation procedures

which will be helpful to the young novice doctors. He listens to one of the happy midwives,

“You did the operation brilliantly doctor” (274).He succeeds his task of keeping steel windpipe
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in the throat of the girl. Then in the coming days, he grows more experiences and faces more

frightening situation than the case of the little girl.

Pat Staten in “The Day My Father Tried to Kill Us” portrays a gruesome picture of a

family in which an inebriated father creates threats and disturbs the peace of the family. Since he

was an infantryman during world war second, he usually talks about his war memories. His

routine of drinking solidly for three days and unbearable activities that he employs at home are

really fully of tension and stresses. Patty Sue, the narrator and young girl calculates his state of

inebriation, “He begins to yell at my mother. Then he begins to beat her. Dishes crashing.

Furniture overturned. The sounds of her body hitting the walls or floor” (317). The father seems

totally irresponsible towards family members and family affairs. Contrary to this, he is brutal and

almost criminal like. One day, he is almost ready to kill all the family members having an army

rifle but he never does that crime. Astonished narrator asks seriously to her mother about the

history of her father. As she hears from her, “He loves you children than anything in the world”

(328).It is total bewilderment to her that the man who has been causing psychological torture for

years to the children can love them most in the world. Her mother reveals all his past and

glorious activities to her and she gets true knowledge behind the state of inebriation.

The illness narratives report and construct the experience of illness from the personal

level to cultural and broadly to the national. They give confidence to the medical practitioners to

respond to the stories of sufferings people with attention, respect and understanding. Similarly,

those narratives provide cultural practices and moral patterns of different communities that

support in the healing practices. Moreover, they encourage the patients of chronic disease to be

accommodated in the society and help cope with the disease itself. The revelation of the

innermost desire and psychic issues of the patients in the illness stories facilitate to communicate
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and negotiate the world of illness to others. They foster intimacy between patients and their

physicians as well as with the supportive family members. The narrative delineation of the

illness makes it possible to share the illness experience with other persons and to talk about

possible interpretation of illness. The ranges of social and cultural contexts depicted in illness

narrative provide different aspects of religion and culture that the patients practice.

Question No: A (1)

Life is meaningless, but worth living, provided you recognize it’s meaningless.

Albert Camus

The aforementioned quotation reveals that in the meaningless state of life, there exists

meaning. Albert Camus believes that life is worth living if one recognizes its meaninglessness

and never tries to look for meaning in living. He affirms that life has meaning when we live it

well with purpose and true to ourselves as well as to our responsibilities in actions. In his most of

the works, Camus displays human activities which are seemingly nonsense but his protagonists

happily accept such actions in their lives. He creates characters who are forced to think, reflect

and assume responsibilities for living as in The Plague. In this novel, each character has been

struggling against suffering and death caused by the epidemic. The hero of the novel

simultaneously fights against the horror of the plague and with the existing absurdities. He

completes his moral duty not only for the sake of his personal dignity but also for the well-being

of the others. Here I endeavor to relate the issues like anxieties, fears, responses of the state and

searching for meaning even in the evil world as depicted in the novel The Plague.
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Dr. Bernard Rieux; the narrator and the protagonist, is very responsible in his duty and

dedicated to serving the plague-ridden populace in Oran. ". . . the doctor told himself, to love or

to die together? And that's the only way"(68). He is clear in his work for providing clinical

diagnosis to the sufferers with affection and love. He is not afraid of death in such a threatening

condition even to the doctor but has a strong desire to accompany the fellow beings supporting

and serving them. Talking with Raymond Rambert, a Paris journalist trapped in Oran, Rieux

avows the essence of his job, " . . . there is one thing I must tell you: there is no question of

heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some

people smile, but the only means of fighting plague is, common decency" (81). The doctor

emphasizes on the common decency that is the mutual connection with victims of plague-

stricken city which make them smile. He means that if people work together to support the sick

inhabitants, bereavement and anxiety will disappear and it is possible to survive eve in the most

extreme circumstances.

In the beginning, the authorities are slow to accept the situation. As the situation worsens,

they declare martial law to control violence, and possible disturbances for granting security to

the townspeople. "It was incidents of this sort that compelled the authorities to declare martial

law and enforce the regulation deriving from it. The two looters were shot . . . "(84). As the

violent activities increase in the city, the responsibility of the government to maintain civil law

comes into practice even by using power. The government tries to minimize the threat of an

epidemic by closing the whole town, managing quarantine to the diseased, using anti-plague

serum and conducting communal funeral. Jean Tarrou, one of the best friends of Rieux whose

notebooks are used as the chronicles says, "I've heard that the authorities are thinking of a sort of

conscription if the population, and all men in good health will be required to help in fighting the
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plague"(61). It reflects that the state can mobilize the healthy people to serve the fellow citizens

who are the victims of the plague.

The human effort to forge solidarity to neutralize suffering is depicted throughout the novel. In

the initial phase of the novel, Dr. Rieux attempts to mobilize the medical community and the city

administration to fight against the plague. He himself is too much conscious to his duty," . . . a

man can't cure and know at the same time. So let's cure as quickly as we can. That's the more

urgent job"(101). He talks with Tarrou and Rambert for supporting in his anti-plague campaign

and familiarize with the urgency of the tasks. Similarly, Tarrou's sanitary teams of volunteers try

to fight against the plague in which Rambert joins, too. As Castel’s serum becomes more

effective and the joint venture of the individuals and the government succeed, death rate ends

dramatically. “At last, at daybreak on a fine February morning, the ceremonial opening of the

gates took place, acclaimed by the populace, the newspaper, the radio, and official,

communiqués”(141). All are in the jubilant mood. Months of anxieties and fears are overcome

and there appears meaning in life again. Dr. Rieux hopes for better life. Throughout his life,

Tarrou, as a challenger of the death penalty, has fought for the continuation of life in all

circumstances. In this way, the novel emphasizes on common responsibility and duty to fight

against the evils causes by the different adverse situations. Then there grows dignity in life and

meaning in living.
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Works Cited

Bulgakov, Mikhail. “The Steel Windpipe”. Imagine What It’s like: A Literature and Medicine

Anthology. Edited by Ruth Nadelhaft with Victoria Bonebakker, University of Hawai

Press, 2008, pp. 269-275.

Camus, Albert. The Plague.Translated by Staurt Gilbert. 1948. Online.

Jurecic, Ann. Illness As Narrative. University of Pittsburg Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,

http://ebookcentral.proquest.cm/lib/tribhuvannp/detail.action?docID=2039279.

Porter, Kathrine Anne. Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels.Random House, 1936.

Staten, Pat. “The Day My Father Tried to Kill Us”. Imagine What It’s like: A Literature and

Medicine Anthology. Edited by Ruth Nadelhaft with Victoria Bonebakker, University of

Hawai Press, 2008, pp. 311-355.

http://www.azquotes.com/author/2398-Albert_Camus