Illness as Experience
According to the art: The illness experience is, overall, and as described by Kleinman, “like the volcano: it does not go away. It menaces. It erupts. It is out of control. One damned thing follows another.”
What I and Others Say
What I and Others Say constitutes observations I and others have made about what the arts say concerning particular disease and illness experiences, and their consequences. These observations can take the form of original opinions, notices about viewpoints outside of According to the Arts, or incidental findings from obscure sources that capture illness experiences not available elsewhere or otherwise incomparable to the same insights from more mainstream sources.
Illness as Loss
According to the art: Illness as loss refers the types of losses that contribute to illness as it is distinguished from disease and sickness and can include loss of confidence, loss of control, loss of innocence, and loss of omnipotence, all of which are related to some degree.
Elements of Illness
According to the art: Illness can be discerned in various ways, and in ways that correspond to how the Arts can address them. Here we list and discuss some elements of illness.
Illness as Questions
According to the art: An element of illness takes the form of questions. The questions can be about the clinical course of a particular health problem or about how a person’s life plans need to be altered. Disfigurement and migraine are featured examples.
Pale Horse Pale Rider:
From One Title, Two Perspectives on the Effects of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
According to the art: Two written genres are used to conjoin the impact of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic on populations with the impact on individuals. A nonfiction account is used to document the catastrophic effects of the pandemic on populations, and a literary short novel is used to render the catastrophic effects of the flu on an individual. Both are called Pale Horse, Pale Rider to reflect the biblical scale of the effects of this flu on individuals and populations.