Abstract
The exegesis begins by giving background and context to my thesis, The Feeling of Cancer, followed by an analysis of my work centring on my themes, narrative style, and narrative voice. I refer to several theoretical works on illness memoirs, particularly Frank’s The wounded storyteller: body, illness and ethics (2013), Reiffenrath’s Memoirs of well-being: rewriting discourses of illness and disability (2016), and Gosselin’s Memoirs as mirrors: counterstories in contemporary memoir (2011). Other illness/disability memoirs that are used by way of illustration and comparison are Sara Gabriel’s Eating Pomegranates: a memoir of mothers, daughters and genes (2010), Trish Harris’s The Walking Stick Tree (2016), Cory Taylor’s Dying: a memoir (2016), Arthur Frank’s At the Will of the Body: reflections on illness (2002), Kathlyn Conway’s Ordinary life: a memoir of illness (1997) and Diana Wichtel’s Driving to Treblinka: a long search for a lost father (2017).
