Claiming chaos narrative, emerging from silence

Abstract

In The Wounded Storyteller, Arthur Frank proposed three types of narrative told by people attempting to reclaim their voice and the body made alien by illness. In restitution narrative the medical community is presented as having agency. In quest narrative, the person experiencing the disease or illness has agency, and they are saddled with the imperative to inspire others. The third type, the chaos narrative, is rarely encountered by audiences because the chaos narrative is usually erased. The individual living with chronic physical or mental illness or a disability, who cannot be stoic and turn their story into a quest narrative, is rendered mute. Their stories have largely been controlled by external agents. Failure to meet normate expectations has meant rejection. How prescriptive norms arose that delegitimatized the authority of chaos narrative must be understood if authentic chaos narrative is to be spoken and written.

Points of interest

• People living with chronic illnesses and disabilities are often prevented from telling their stories as they don’t have happy endings or end with triumph.

• Their stories often don’t fit the traditional Western storytelling format that has a clear resolution, but rather speaks to ongoing challenges continually lived in the present.

• Society, publishing and media outlets create forces that often both shape the narratives people tell and determine what kind of stories reach audiences.

• There is a need to allow more venues for allowing stories about ongoing struggles that do not resolve rather than to silence these narratives because they don’t fit our learned, preferred tastes.

Keywords:

• Chaos narrative
• disability/illlness narratives
• Western narrative
• market forces
• Eastern philosophical influences

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.