This dissertation addresses the use of two of the great scourges in world history, tuberculosis and cancer, in the literary texts of North America and Europe. The focus of this work is on these two diseases due to their prominent status in the western world over the last several centuries. They also possess several significant commonalities: each has held the distinction of being one of the most feared diseases, each has been responsible for the deaths of countless people, and each has had a significant literary presence in Europe and North America. I first provide a chapter on each disease detailing its biological, medical, and social histories. Each chapter on the literary texts then includes discussions of noteworthy examples from a wide range of cultures in this investigation of each disease’s three primary manifestations in literature. The longer focused analyses of each paradigm concentrate on works from Germany and North America, as these literary traditions have produced particularly compelling works concerning tuberculosis and cancer. These focused analyses concern use of tuberculosis in the texts of Erich Maria Remarque, Eugene O’Neill, and Thomas Mann, and the use of cancer in the works of Brigitte Reimann, Maxie Wander, Audre Lorde, Reynolds Price, Thomas Mann, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Edson, and Christa Wolf.
My readings of literary texts, both fictional and experiential, examine in part the effects of these illnesses on the perception of self and place in society. These analyses rely to some extent on the scholarly literature that has already investigated problems of identity produced by illness in general, both in culture and in literature. What these scholars have not done is examine these themes of identity and the self in society as they relate to specific diseases in literary texts, and I will therefore investigate and expand on them in their manifestations in works concerning tuberculosis and cancer. My readings therefore in part discuss how the unique physical manifestations and cultural realities of cancer and tuberculosis affect the identities and the narratives of their fictional and non-fictional sufferers. I also address how these themes are used in texts in which the author has sought to highlight social or ethical conditions using either of these diseases.
Literary portrayals of tuberculosis and cancer are informed by the medical and social facts of each disease. I therefore investigate how authors may alter, expand, or even distort these medical and social facts in their texts so as to achieve their respective intentions. In doing so, authors can reinforce commonly held perceptions or misperceptions of the disease. They may also create new perceptions or associations as they depict the disease in a novel manner. I discuss the ways in which authors within each paradigm either use or go against the medical and social facts of each disease and the effect this then has on the themes the author presents. I also explore why these diseases lend themselves to the particular paradigms authors have traditionally favored for each, and discuss the historical progression of those paradigms.