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ENG 625.2 Mid-Term
ENG 625.2 Mid-Term
English 625.2
25 Jan. 2023
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
http://www.azquotes.com/author/2398-Albert_Camus