The Story of "I": Illness and Narrative Identity

Rimmon‐Kenan, Shlomith

doi:10.1353/nar.2002.0006

Cited by 76 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This identity is subject to revision as one attempts to make sense of new information and events. The vicissitudes of life, such as chronic illness (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002) or the diagnosis of infertility (Kirkman, 2001), are often the triggers for a reassessment of self and identity, leading to narrative revision. A diagnosis of AIS or similar condition is just such a vicissitude and can be assumed to challenge previous understanding of identity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Being an XY Female: An Analysis of Accounts From the Website of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group

Garrett

Kirkman

2009

Health Care for Women International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We report an investigation of the experience of being an XY female through the analysis of accounts posted on an Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome support group website. We investigated management of narrative identity following diagnosis, focusing on barriers and aids to narrative revision. Barriers included the sense of stigma arising from secrecy imposed by doctors and families in a society assuming binary sex and gender. Women were assisted in deriving new meaning from their condition by finding that others share a collective narrative of XY womanhood. The results of this research have implications for the medical and psychological management of XY females.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Being an XY Female: An Analysis of Accounts From the Website of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group

Garrett

Kirkman

2009

Health Care for Women International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The rupture and discontinuity provoked by cancer is healed through the narrative, as she is now able to view breast cancer ‘less as a departure from my life than as a part of it’ (p. 257) 4. The memoir connects the fragments resulting from the initial shock, and there emerges an embodied story of ‘continuity with phoenix-like affirmations of new meaning in life’ 13. Conway finds that writing has a very positive effect on her: ‘writing relieves me of the burden of my feelings […] The writing is like a magnet that draws together all the stray parts of myself.…”

Section: Self-writing and Self-recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Through a first person narrative, we may examine ‘the relationship between identity and one's bodily nature and experience, especially when they are drastically altered by disability or illness’ 12. Thus, we can consider personal narratives as a means to create a new continuity, to replace what was ruptured 13. Overall, the writers seek recognition in order to rebuild their own sense of identity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative empathy and illness memoirs: Arthur Frank'sAt the Will of the Bodyand Kathlyn Conway'sOrdinary Life

Baena

2017

Med Humanities

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article analyses the concept of narrative empathy in illness memoirs. These texts negotiate the narrative identity of an autobiographer as he or she recounts the disruptive experience of illness, an experience in which physical and emotional traces dramatically and definitively shape our sense of self. While narrative emotions are certainly deployed in these autobiographies in order to connect with the readers and promote social change, this empathic connection is not so much aimed at arousing compassion but rather more positive emotions on the experience of illness. I will explore the emotional representations of cancer in Arthur Frank's (1991) and Kathlyn Conway's (1997), focusing on the identity strategies these authors use in order to become affirmative models of disability and illness, showing the damaging effects not of disease or impairment but, rather, of the cultural mythologies that interpret those conditions in reductive or disparaging ways.

show abstract

“…In other words, the narrative describes a turning point in the narrator's life. As Rimmon-Kenan (2002) argues, the turning point structure in illness narratives "counteracts disruption" (18) and thus offers a sense of coherence to the ill person. However, this structure can also constitute a kind of "entrapment" in the sense that it suppresses the experience of chaos and can thus lead to a meaningless recycling of a culturally expected narrative type.…”

Section: Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%