Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

“It Is Not Wit, It Is Truth:” Transcending the Narrative Bounds of Professional and Personal Identity in Life and in Art

  • Published:
Journal of Medical Humanities Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Taking inspiration from the film Wit (2001), adapted from Margaret Edson’s (1999) Pulitzer Prize-winning play, this article explores the particularities of witnessing a cinematic cancer narrative juxtaposed with the author’s own cancer narrative. The analysis reveals the tenuous line between death and dying, illness and wellness, life and living and the resulting identities shaped in the process of understanding both from a personal and professional lens. By framing these representations of illness experience within the narrative constructions of drama, time, metaphor and morality, the personal stories of intellectual knowledge converging with intimate and embodied knowing are revealed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Baracchi, Claudia. 2006. “Contributions to the Coming-to-Be of Greek Beginning: Heidegger’s Inceptive Thinking.” In Heidegger and the Greeks: Interpretive essays, edited by Drew A. Hylan and John Panteleimon Manoussakis, 23-42. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Booth, Wayne. 2002. “The Ethics of Medicine, As Revealed in Literature.” In Stories Matter: The Role of Narrative in Medical Ethics, edited by Rita Charon and Martha Montello, 10-20. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Brendel, William. 2009. “A Framework for Narrative-Driven Transformative Learning in Medicine.” Journal of Transformative Education 7: 26-43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Brown, Margaret Wise. 1942. The Runaway Bunny. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Burke, Kenneth. 1945. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Bury, Mike. 1982. “Chronic Illness as Biographical Disruption.” Sociology of Health and Illness 4, no. 2: 167-182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Charon, Rita. 2006. Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Crapanzano, Vincent. 2004. Imaginative Horizons: An Essay in Literary-Philosophical Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Deloney, Linda A. and James Graham. 2003. “Wit: Using Drama to Teach First-Year Medical Students About Empathy and Compassion.” Teaching and Learning in Medicine: An International Journal 15, no. 4: 247-251.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Eads, Martha Greene. 2002. “Unwitting Redemption in Margaret Edson’s Wit.” Christianity and Literature 51, no. 2: 241-254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Edson, Margaret. 1999. Wit. New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Foster, Ellen A. 2007. “A Rigorous Mind Meets her Yielding Body: Intellectual Life and Meaning-Making in Wit.” Annals of Internal Medicine 147, no. 5: 353-356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Frank, Arthur. 1995. The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  14. ----- 2004. The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Medicine, and How to Live. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  15. ----- 2010. Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-Narratology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  16. Frankl, Viktor. 1959. Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Washington Square Press.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Geisel, Theodor Seuss (Dr. Seuss). 1960. Oh, The Places You’ll Go! New York: Random House Children’s Books.

  18. Hydén, Lars-Christer. 1997. “Illness and Narrative.” Sociology of Health & Illness 19, no. 1: 48-69.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Jones, Therese. 2007. “Ending in Wonder: Replacing Technology with Revelation in Margaret Edson’s Wit. Perspectives on Biology and Medicine 50, no. 3: 395-409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Keaveney, Madeline M. 2004. “Death be not Proud: An Analysis of Margaret Edson’s Wit.” Women and Language 27, no. 1: 40-44.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Kirmayer, Lawrence. 2000. “Broken Narratives.” In Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing, edited by Cheryl Mattingly and Linda Garro, 153-180. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Klaver, Elizabeth. 2004. A mind-body-flesh problem: The case of Margaret Edson’s “Wit.” Contemporary Literature. 45(4): 659-683.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Kleinman, Arthur. 1989. The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Lamont, Rosette C. 1999. “Coma versus Comma: John Donne’s Holy Sonnets in Edson’s Wit.” The Massachusetts Review 40, no. 4: 569-575.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Lewis, Peter R. 2005. “The Wisdom of Wit in the Teaching of Medical Students and Residents.” Family Medicine 27, no. 6: 396-398.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Mattingly, Cheryl. 1998. Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The Narrative Structure of Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  27. ----- 2010. The Paradox of Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press.

  28. ----- 2012a. “Two Virtue Ethics and the Anthropology of Morality.” Anthropological Theory 12: 161-184.

  29. ----- 2012b. “Moral Selves and Moral Scenes: Narrative Experiments in Everyday Life.” Ethnos early online, 1-27.

  30. Murphy, Robert F. 1987. The Body Silent. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Radley, Alan and Diane Taylor. 2003. “Remembering One’s Stay in Hospital: A Study in Photography, Recovery and Forgetting.” Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 7, no. 2: 129-159.

  32. Rier. David. 2000. “The Missing Voice of the Critically Ill: A Medical Sociologist’s First-Person Account.” Sociology of Health & Illness 22, no. 1: 68-93.

  33. Rosaldo, Renato. 1989. “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage.” In Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis, edited by Renato Rosaldo, 1-21. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Sacks, Oliver. 1984. A Leg to Stand On. New York: Touchstone.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Sykes Jr., John D. 2003. “Wit, Pride and the Resurrection: Margaret Edson’s Play and John Donne’s Poetry.” Renascence 55, no. 2: 163-174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Taylor, Jill Bolte. 2006. My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey. New York: Viking.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Throop, C. Jason. 2010a. Suffering and Sentiment: Exploring the Vicissitudes of Experience and Pain in Yap. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Vanhoutte, Jacqueline. 2002. “Cancer and the Common Woman in Margaret Edson’s Wit.” Comparative Drama 36, no. 3/4: 391-410.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Wit, directed by Mike Nichols. 2001. Los Angeles: Avenue Pictures Productions, DVD.

  40. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations. London, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Wriglesworth, Chad. 2008. “Theological Humanism as Living Praxis: Reading Surfaces and Depth in Margaret Edson’s Wit.” Literature & Theology 22, no. 2: 210-222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Thanks are extended to early readers of this manuscript for their thoughtful suggestions and support including Mary Lawlor, ScD and Cheryl Mattingly, PhD. In particular I would like to thank the editor and reviewer for their critical and valued feedback. This paper was written in partial fulfillment of the author’s requirements for a doctorate degree in occupational science at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the author has no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry, University of Southern California, 1540 Alcazar Street, CHP – 133, Los Angeles, CA, 90089-9003, USA

    Michelle L. Elliot

Authors
  1. Michelle L. Elliot
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michelle L. Elliot.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Elliot, M.L. “It Is Not Wit, It Is Truth:” Transcending the Narrative Bounds of Professional and Personal Identity in Life and in Art. J Med Humanit 37, 241–256 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9272-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9272-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation