Welcome to Cancerland by Barbara Ehrenreich published her essay in “Harper’s Magazine” in November of 2001. Introducing the essay, Ehrenreich stated, “I was thinking of it as one of those drive-by mammograms…” which foreshadowed her breaking news of breast cancer. Though, through the whole process of her so called, drive-by mammogram, Ehrenreich explains her feelings of the external world and her internal mind. She attacks the situation with a mocking sarcastic tone, but also addresses it as a casual pre-experienced memory that she witnessed before through the solicitation of the pink ribbon movement. She detests the thought of the “...photocopied bits of cuteness and sentimentality: pink ribbons...” as well as the cartoons about women with no breasts and the worst of all in her opinion the teddy bears. It could be argued that Ehrenreich essay engages a feminist approach to the sentimentalism of the pink ribbon movement with her flawlessly casual tone, mixed with her ability to capture the essence of what is really happening in the social normality of the movement.
Leading to, the newly factual information that the medical professionals provided to Ehrenreich, she has a sense of self denial. She insisted, in her last act of dignified self-assertion, to request to see her pathology sides herself, which is easily done because of her Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University. She leads to an exclusive state of mind of let me die before, “...Sticky sentimentalism in [those] Teddy Bear[s].” In the emerging state of mind, that Ehrenreich is brought, she starts posting her thoughts on an online chat site. In shock to find that most women scolded her on her view of the situation and believe that she may need medical help; a psychi...
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... biopsies, and the irony of company who sponsored breast cancer month--AstraZeneca an ex-leading manufacture of pesticides, which produced chemicals that were carcinogenic.
In any case, Ehrenreich conclude with the dismissal of the word survivors. This is done in a very rhetorical questionable way, she depicts the faults in the word survivor and breaks down the reason why the term is no suitable. Ehrenreich asks, “Did we who live “fight” harder than those who’ve died? Can we claim to be “braver,” better, people than the dead? And why is there no room in this cult for some gracious acceptance of death, when the time comes, which it surely will, through cancer or some other misfortune?” In the conclusion of the essay . In her last chance to make her resistance clear Ehrenreich states,”[she] will not go into her last good night with a teddy bear tucked in [her] arm.”
This article is written in the first person's point of view. The style is informal, almost chatty in spite of the morbid topic it deals with. The author uses this style to tell the reader a story, like telling a friend an experience. The author's feelings and thoughts are freely expressed. This helps to put the reader into the author's shoes, to see through her eyes and feel through her heart.
Diane was a patient of Dr. Timothy Quill, who was diagnosed with acute myelomonocytic leukemia. Diane overcame alcoholism and had vaginal cancer in her youth. She had been under his care for a period of 8 years, during which an intimate doctor-patient bond had been established. It was Dr. Quill’s observation that “she was an incredibly clear, at times brutally honest, thinker and communicator.” This observation became especially cogent after Diane heard of her diagnosis. Dr. Quill informed her of the diagnosis, and of the possible treatments. This series of treatments entailed multiple chemotherapy sessions, followed by a bone marrow transplant, accompanied by an array of ancillary treatments. At the end of this series of treatments, the survival rate was 25%, and it was further complicated in Diane’s case by the absence of a closely matched bone-marrow donor. Diane chose not to receive treatment, desiring to spend whatever time she had left outside of the hospital. Dr. Quill met with her several times to ensure that she didn’t change her mind, and he had Diane meet with a psychologist with whom she had met before. Then Diane complicated the case by informing Dr. Quill that she be able to control the time of her death, avoiding the loss of dignity and discomfort which would precede her death. Dr. Quinn informed her of the Hemlock Society, and shortly afterwards, Diane called Dr. Quinn with a request for barbiturates, complaining of insomnia. Dr. Quinn gave her the prescription and informed her how to use them to sleep, and the amount necessary to commit suicide. Diane called all of her friends to say goodbye, including Dr. Quinn, and took her life two days after they met.
... seeing and feeling it’s renewed sense of spring due to all the work she has done, she was not renewed, there she lies died and reader’s find the child basking in her last act of domestication. “Look, Mommy is sleeping, said the boy. She’s tired from doing all out things again. He dawdled in a stream of the last sun for that day and watched his father roll tenderly back her eyelids, lay his ear softly to her breast, test the delicate bones of her wrist. The father put down his face into her fresh-washed hair” (Meyer 43). They both choose death for the life style that they could no longer endure. They both could not look forward to another day leading the life they did not desire and felt that they could not change. The duration of their lifestyles was so pain-staking long and routine they could only seek the option death for their ultimate change of lifestyle.
Popular beliefs and opinions of the masses in society often become societal norms. Challenges to these societal norms can cause large-scale societal shifts or transitions. Examples of such occurrences include woman’s suffrage, the occupy movement, and falsified racial stereotyping. However, popular opinions, influenced by media, corporations, and members of the community, are sometimes flawed. “Welcome to Cancerland,” written by Barbara Ehrenreich, and “Beautiful Brains,” written by David Dobbs share a similar purpose of debunking common myths and stereotypes of specific social groups. Ehrenreich’s essay states that corporations and community members are popularizing the celebration of the “breast cancer sisterhood,” while stemming the drive
“Now is the time to cry to your heart’s content,” The doctor said in a soporific voice. “Tears are the best medicine.” Maria unburdened herself without shame, as she had never been able to do with her casual lovers in the empty times that followed lovemaking… This was, for the first time in her life, the miracle of being understood by a man who listened to her with all his heart and did not expect to go to bed with her as a reward. (76)
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” are both centralized on the feministic views of women coming out to the world. Aside from the many differences within the two short stories, there is also similarities contained in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” such as the same concept of the “rest treatment” was prescribed as medicine to help deal with their sickness, society’s views on the main character’s illness, and both stories parallel in the main character finding freedom in the locked rooms that they contain themselves in.
Ehrenreich opens up her book at an extremely difficult time in her life, battling cancer. Not only is she battling cancer but she is at a time where she is being exposed to the darkest times to positive
Cancer, like humor, is an equal opportunity offender. And cancer has become almost like a national pastime, which is just another display of the brilliance of Sherman Alexie. You can’t go anywhere without running into multicolored ribbons and pricey paraphernalia commodifying death and infantilizing the very personal and agonizing fight to survive cancer. Everything put in place to raise awareness in order to find a cure has been done with the very best of intentions and the hope for a future without the dark, overhanging cloud that cancer brings to so many people’s lives. But that support ironically creates a sense of audience, of fandom and voyeurism, the ribbons becoming the admission tickets to the new national pastime. Cancer itself is like a bad joke that just won’t quit.
For example, to make people aware that breast cancer can affect even young women, thefaceofbreastcancer.com printed a poster portraying the faces of fifty different women all under the age of 41 who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. The words “Your sister,” “You,” “Your friend,” are highlighted sporadically throughout the poster. The phrase “Have a lump or pain? Regardless of age, CHECK IT OUT NOW!” is also highlighted in the midst of all the women’s ...
Ostensibly, the narrator's illness is not physiological, but mental. John concludes that his wife is well except for a "temporary nervous depression--a slight hysterical tendency," a diagnosis that is confirmed by the narrator's own physician-brother (Gilman 10). John's profession, and moreover his diagnosis, is a license to closely observe, scrutinize, watch, gaze upon, seek out, and investigate his wife and her ailments, which consequently permits him to deploy seemingly inexhaustible (medical, scientific) means for (re)formulating and (re)presenting the hysteric female--not only for the purpose of giving her discursive representation, but in order to "de-mystify" her mystery and reassure himself that she is, finally, calculable, harmless, and non-threatening. To speak of John in psychoanalytic terms, his preoccupation with his wife, her body, and her confinement, reveals unspoken anxieties: the fear of castration and the "lack" the female body represents.
Ehrenreich, Barbara and English, Deirdre Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness, The Feminist Press
The book begins with a narrative of cancer relating back to its history. Cancer in the book is discussed as a confusing, complex disease that was hard to decode by doctors for over a century. Mukherjee gives rich details about the way people assessed breast cancer in the nineteenth century discussing how radiation and chemotherapy were once used before modern times. Further, into the book, Mukherjee shares with personal experience working in the field of
...erved by the medical establishment. On May 11 we hope to draw 20,000 people and raise $1 million for the foundation. This is an event that not only educates the community on breast cancer awareness, but also empowers women to survive.
This cancer impeded and destroys the production of vital parts of the blood supply. They went to the doctor and filed for Euthanasia, which she was granted. Their children were outside the bedroom where Matilde was prepared to die. T the nurse Mathilde said, “I am ready” and to her husband, “I am not afraid.” Mathilde was fully conscious. Mathilde died in a couple of minutes as the physician injected her. Her husband felt a ton of emotions at the same time. Interestingly, leading up to the day of her death and how sick she was, Mathilde was very preoccupied and hadn't had time for her husband leading up the the big day. There was not a last long look of love as she was being prepared. Her sub and felt nothing but grief in the weeks leading up to his wife's death. He remembered reading an article about a British Author who had lost his wife the same way, The author had said that in death his wife had “regained the radiance of her youth.” The man went up to look at his wife and he nted that she didn't look any younger than she was when she died. The coroner came and took Mathilde away. The man felt grief but he knew his wife's wishes had been
Even though dying is a natural part of existence, American culture is unique in the extent to which death is viewed as a taboo topic. Rather than having open discussions, we tend to view death as a feared enemy that can and should be defeated by modern medicine and machines. Our language reflects this battle mentality, we say that people "combat" illnesses, or (in contrast) "fall victim" to them after a "long struggle." Euphemistic language also gives us distance from our discomfort with death, (Grohol, 2013). People who die are "no longer with us", have "passed", gone "to meet their Maker", “bought the farm”, “kicked the bucket", and so on.