Date of Award
May 2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
Committee Member
Walt Hunter
Committee Member
Clare Mullaney
Committee Member
Jordan Frith
Abstract
Arranging the experiences of our lives in some kind of order gives us a way to make sense of ourselves, others, and the things that happen to us. The singular chaos of being in a body, being of a body, becomes a little easier to articulate when channeled through a narrative form. Perhaps this is why scholars of literature and medicine have become increasingly interested in diaristic, autobiographical accounts of illness, or illness narratives. Texts of this variety, emerging in print around the mid-twentieth century and proliferating online through the present, contain the experience of illness in a manageable framework. Now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we might turn to accounts of illness shared by those who’ve contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus to help us make sense of these “unprecedented times.” If we attend to this emergent new form, the COVID-19 illness narrative, and learn from what it shows us about ourselves, we might have a meaningful story to tell when inevitably one day we are asked, “What happened?”
Recommended Citation
Allison, Thomas M., "COVID-19 and the Emergence of a New Illness Narrative" (2021). All Theses. 3511.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/3511