Literature and Medicine

Abstract:

Narrative has long been central to the study of literature about illness, but we err if we assume that memoir and fiction alone depict the embodied experience of physical suffering. Contemporary writers also turn to the essay. In French, essayer means to attempt, and writing essays requires facing difficult questions and predicaments, confronting uncertainty and the unknown. Among recent literary essays, many are about women in pain. These include Eula Biss's "The Pain Scale" (2005) and Leslie Jamison's "Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain" (2014). Each of these writers asks: How, when, and why do we suffer? Why is women's pain so often diminished, dismissed, and misunderstood? And why, in response to the suffering of others, do we regularly fail to provide what is needed?