Sleep

Abstract

The third chapter, Sleep, looks at how the demands of our working and social lives can conflict with the demands of our body, and at how illness redefines our lives through the need to sleep. While rest is sometimes the best cure for illness, sleep clashes with social expectations, destroys routines, and causes conflicts. The need to sleep is perhaps the most delicate revelation of the body’s vulnerability, and bodies that need to sleep more simply do not fit in with the demands of modern life. As such, they present themselves as things that demand care, that are frail and difficult to manage. Aiden has rheumatoid arthritis and rest is a better cure than any drug, but with a modern life in London it is the hardest thing to come by. Sometimes his body screams for sleep to rest and rejuvenate, evidencing the conflict between how Aiden wants to live and what his body needs.