Chemotherapy In Margaret Edson's Wit

The poet successfully illustrates the magnitude with which this disease can change its victim’s perspective about things and situations once familiar to

This quote shows that even though Mairs sometimes has difficulty accepting her illness, she knows that there is a growing acceptance of people who must deal with the difficulties that she faces. This ultimately lends a hopeful and positive tone to an otherwise serious and depressing section of her essay. This contrast in tone, but general feeling of hope is key to the type of emotions that Nancy Mairs is trying to educate her readers about. Mair is successful in using multiple rhetorical strategies to connect with the reader.

This happened only five years before the antibiotic that could have treated him and prevented his death came to be. In illustrating this story, she describes the event as one that “scarred his family with a grief they never recovered from.” (188) Through this story, as a reader, it is almost impossible not to imagine yourself in her shoes. That, along with the use of these very emotionally provoking words, she captures the audience from the beginning with this pathetic appeal that carries on throughout the essay. She goes on to appeal to logics as well.

Wednesday, October 22 Reading Response 2 “Living Will” by Danielle Ofri is about an author who is a doctor who came across a patient that is suicidal. “They All Just Went Away” by Joyce Carol Oates is about a young lonely girl who finds herself attracted in entering abandoned house and is entranced by other peoples lives and what they left by. Although these stories are very different, I believe both the authors share a similar idea, but different outlooks, of how the main characters in each essay struggle to do the right thing. “Living Will” gives us a better perspective of what doctors today have to face with their jobs. The author, Danielle Ofri, came across a severely ill patient, Wilburn Reston, which really makes her think.

Foster develops the concept that an illness is never just an illness in How to Read Literature Like a Professor. This is evident in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God through the symbolism of the illnesses that impact Janie’s life. Foster explains that a prime literary disease “should have strong symbolic or metaphorical possibilities” (Foster 224). Hurston utilizes this concept in her novel, the characters developing illnesses that represent Janie’s freedom and independence.

In the first section, he gives numerous examples of how normal his life was before the diagnosis. He recounts his childhood and his beginnings of how he loved to read because of his mother. He tells of when he would stay out late reading in the starlight to come home to his mother worried that he was doing drugs, but “the most intoxicating thing I’d experienced, by far, was the volume of romantic poetry she’d handed me the previous week” (27). He continues with all of his life before cancer, but when he gets the results he says “One chapter of my life seemed to have ended; perhaps the whole book was closing” (120). The rest of the book, the closing of his book as he calls it, focuses on examples of how cancer changed his

The movie Wit (Bosanquet & Nichols, 2001) focuses on Dr. Vivian Bearing, an English professor who is diagnosed with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer. It chronicle’s Vivian’s experiences with her health care team up until her death. Throughout the movie her doctors, Doctor Kelekian and his fellows, most notably Jason, make many errors while treating Vivian. They communicate with Vivian in ways that make her feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable, violate ethical principles by ignoring her autonomy and not sharing critical information about her health with her, and failing to addressed her spiritual needs. Vivian’s nurse, Susie, does her best to care for Vivian.

When she had to return to chemotherapy, she was almost happy to go because it was familiar and she was accepted. She always had a companion there whether it was a doctor, nurse, or another patient. She was no longer the outcast. A lot of her time was spent criticizing “normal” people for wanting to be somebody else when all she wanted to be was like everyone else. She defined herself as an individual base on how other people saw her.

Her explanation of a good death involved being mentally stable, but research shows that the elderly population is vastly increasing and a many of the elderly will lose the mental stability before they die. She shares gruesome information of how elderly people start to lose their mental abilities and how they physically start to decompose from old age. This brings up the question, is it better to die younger before the body starts to fall apart? She backs up her argument with details of Alzheimer’s and illnesses that plague the elderly, arguing that dying with all these problems is worse than dying at a younger age. Her main goal as a person is to help people cope with death and teach people to not fear death because death is natural and

It could then be noted that her personality shifted from one of autonomy to one of intense caring for others. Besides being a homemaker, in mid-life she become a personal protector for her husband. Her personality shifted when Ronald experienced a near death experience, and Nancy again showed how caring and passionate she was about her family. Nancy exemplified post-conventional morality (5). Minus her fractured hip, Nancy could be considered as one who ‘successfully’ aged (5).

Psychoanalytic Criticism may also be applied, as her actions and thought patterns were heavily influenced by her sickness, "Better in body perhaps--" I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word. "My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for our child 's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false

Some patients may focus on more that they would have otherwise taken for granted. "She 'd pull herself out of bed, press her hands and face to the glass, and watch her children play on the lawn" (Skloot 66). Henrietta knew she would not have much time left, so she made sure to enjoy what she thought she would miss. She changed her lifestyle because she thought more about what was important to her and made sure she enjoyed herself. In Henrietta Lacks ' case, her cells helped the lives of tons of other patients, as well as the advancement in cancer research.

Imagine a close family member finding out they have cancer. Most people would be devastated, but my mom concurred through it and continued to brighten everyone’s day, D. Thesis- Even through her journey of cancer, my mom kept a smile on her face and continued to inspire people. E. Preview of Main Points- Cancer not only made my mom realize how lucky she was, but it also pushed her to become a better person.

When writing her personal essay “In Bed”, author Joan Didion intended it for an audience very familiar with migraines, however, it has the potential to be written for an audience of people just beginning to experience migraines. Didion’s use of personal anecdotes, factual information, and inspiring acceptance are all points that can be altered for this new audience. Didion begins her essay with personal accounts of her experiences with migraines, setting the stage for an introduction that relates to newcomers. She describes the suffering in which she endures during her migrains, composed of imagery that brings the reader into her situation. Where she begins with stating that she “spend[s] the day in bed with a migraine”, she could instead present this as a question to the reader.

I found this movie interesting because I agree with what the film implied on how all patient share a commonality called vulnerability. In the movie Wit, you are allowed a peek into the medical world that shows disregard for humanity. The film revolves around an English professor, Vivian Bearing, being diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, the treatment, and how her professional status is taken away for being a patient. A major theme of this movie is dependency on others by chronicling Vivian 's trial treatment and it allows the viewers a peek into the world of a patient dying from cancer. After watching the film, I noticed that there were a lot of significant moral issues, which correlates with the nursing profession.