ipl-logo

Character Analysis: Mom's Cancer

1268 Words6 Pages

Mom’s cancer As Hamlet poignantly stated in his soliloquy, “To be or not to be that is the question,” patients with cancer have to decide whether they would undergo chemo and/or radiotherapy. The side effects of chemotherapy according to American Cancer Society are fatigue, hair loss, nausea, vomiting, appetite change, constipation and decreased immunity. In MOM’S CANCER by Brian flies, Flies narrates the progression of his mother’s cancer in a graphic novel style. In this graphic novel, he reveals the challenge that her mother, a cancer patient, experienced from the scope of third party along with the joy of overcoming the disease. One thing that was striking in this novel is that she was generally unknowledgeable about the cancer in …show more content…

In this scene, she was telling her son about the what she expects about her diagnostic scan on the following day. She claims that regardless of the outcome, it will be “WIN-WIN.” What she meant by that is that if the chemotherapy was working than she could expect to see the cancer shrinking. This is obviously the ideal news for her. The latter “WIN” shows that she does not have to undergo the chemotherapy. Typically, normal people would respond to the latter results as failure, sad, and hopelessness; however, that is not the case for her. Since she truly believe that tomorrow will be a great day regardless of the outcome. Her facial expression seems very calm, and it insinuate her tranquility. In other words, she is in a relaxed state, and stating what she truly feels about her treatment plan. Moreover, in contrast to the page forty-seven’s picture with a dark background, where she is suffering from the chemotherapy, the author chose to illuminate this picture by using a white background. This also implies that she is very optimistic about her future, and she is content about her decision to fight against the cancer. In this page ninety-eight, she acknowledges that she does not enjoy undergoing chemotherapy, and it is reasonable to assume based on the common sense that nobody enjoys to experience the chemotherapy’s side effect. However, …show more content…

It is normal to expect that anything below twenty-five percent sounds like a death sentence, her experience debunked this common way of thinking. It shows that she learned that she could live as long as she has a chance to live. This gave us an insight that medical statistic is not everything, and there is a hope that she could survive even if the odds are low. With this knowledge, experience and her optimistic character, it is more than likely that she would choose to undergo the chemotherapy even if the process of this treatment is

Show More
Related
1764 Words | 8 Pages

In the first section, he gives numerous examples of how normal his life was before the diagnosis. He recounts his childhood and his beginnings of how he loved to read because of his mother. He tells of when he would stay out late reading in the starlight to come home to his mother worried that he was doing drugs, but “the most intoxicating thing I’d experienced, by far, was the volume of romantic poetry she’d handed me the previous week” (27). He continues with all of his life before cancer, but when he gets the results he says “One chapter of my life seemed to have ended; perhaps the whole book was closing” (120). The rest of the book, the closing of his book as he calls it, focuses on examples of how cancer changed his

Read More
1612 Words | 7 Pages

Every day she found something new about her appearance that disgusted her which seemed to be the greatest tragedy she has faced, and cancer seemed to be a minor comparison. Cancer seemed to be a ticket for empathy of kindness towards her and having a disfigured face seemed to be a ticket to avoid her, how

Read More
653 Words | 3 Pages

Day, her husband, was one of the few who knew about her cancer. Cancer during this generation was unheard of and unspoken for; when Henrietta revealed the details to her husband, he had many concerns. Closer to her death, Day, along with his cousins, encountered Henrietta in massive pain. They didn’t understand much about her health until this moment. At this time, “They didn’t realize she was dying.

Read More
1041 Words | 5 Pages

she asked. “Do? Nothing, except feel glad and happy to be alive” (78). If she felt these positive emotions, why did she not start over again with

Read More
1086 Words | 5 Pages

According to the National Cancer Institute, about 40% of people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life, and there were approximately 13,776,251 people living with cancer in 2012. Cancer is a common disease with many types and forms. The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot shows the story of a woman with cervical cancer, and how her illness affected herself and her family. Although cancer affects a patient physically, it also has effects on the patient mentally and financially, as well as it challenges patients to change their lifestyles for the better.

Read More
512 Words | 3 Pages

In Margaret Edson’s Wit, the author uses the binary opposition of compassion and austerity. The protagonist, Vivian Bearing, a doctor of English, learns that she has advanced ovarian cancer, and undergoes an experimental chemotherapy program. Her doctor, Jason, and her nurse, Susie, have different views of her mortality, and the author shows their contrasting views in a particular scene. While Susie shows a more compassionate side to Vivian, Jason is very stern with her. Jason faces the inevitable with no hesitation and though Susie can as well, she also comforts Vivian.

Read More
1999 Words | 8 Pages

She shows her vulnerability side with no question. She does not make up her feelings because she manually writes about them. This shows accuracy. While finishing her article she says, “And until we do something to prevent that, we have made peace with being victims of fear ourselves” (Lange,2018). She as a person has chosen to protect herself and continues

Read More
1565 Words | 7 Pages

Her book, The Cancer Journals, is about her battle with breast cancer, and her struggle against fear. Her struggle to be fully seen, understood, and visible. For me, one of the most profound sentences she penned seems relevant for us today. – She wrote “Silence has never brought us anything of worth.” SILENCE IS THE ENEMY.

Read More
462 Words | 2 Pages

The narrator has no say in her health as she states “Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?” , unable to confide in others about her state of well

Read More
871 Words | 4 Pages

When the result came, everyone had a negative result except Esther. Nurse Viser strongly believed that Esther will get better due to the new medicines coming every month. ““The bad news is, the list is long and it’ll take a while for your name to get up the top,” said Nurse Viser “The good news is, your health is excellent and you may be able to get treated before you’re sick.” ” Nurse Viser believes that Esther will get better and she will not get sick due to the new medicine and her good health. She still believes in Esther even though she has to wait to get to the top of the list and maybe in that period Esther’s health could get worse, and something bad could happen.

Read More
657 Words | 3 Pages

She had to stay optimistic during the Holocaust, a time when her life was in danger and she was oppressed by the Nazis and most of Germany. During hiding and up until her death in a concentration camp in 1944, she managed to stay optimistic and keep a positive attitude. She wrote in her diary, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.” This shows that even after all she has been through, she still manages to stay positive and optimistic.

Read More
807 Words | 4 Pages

This quote shows that even though Mairs sometimes has difficulty accepting her illness, she knows that there is a growing acceptance of people who must deal with the difficulties that she faces. This ultimately lends a hopeful and positive tone to an otherwise serious and depressing section of her essay. This contrast in tone, but general feeling of hope is key to the type of emotions that Nancy Mairs is trying to educate her readers about. Mair is successful in using multiple rhetorical strategies to connect with the reader.

Read More
1360 Words | 6 Pages

When she had to return to chemotherapy, she was almost happy to go because it was familiar and she was accepted. She always had a companion there whether it was a doctor, nurse, or another patient. She was no longer the outcast. A lot of her time was spent criticizing “normal” people for wanting to be somebody else when all she wanted to be was like everyone else. She defined herself as an individual base on how other people saw her.

Read More
1474 Words | 6 Pages

She expresses her frustration when she says, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a light hysterical tendency-what is one to do?” (486). She felt like she was suffering alone in her illness. I am able to relate to this since I have seen depression in many of my loved ones, and even I went through a bout of depression when I

Read More
1601 Words | 7 Pages

I watched my mother fade away slowly as she was battling pancreatic cancer. I looked after her everyday as best as I could; however, the feeling of my eventual solitude was unbearable. The thought of my mother’s imminent demise made me feel like my heart was being continuously stabbed. Watching my mother suffer was one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through. After her passing; something changed in me, darkness filled where love once was.

Read More

More about Character Analysis: Mom's Cancer

Related Topics

Open Document