The Many Fictions of Illness: A Rhetorical Approach to Understanding Fictionality in Mom’s Cancer

Abstract

Recent studies of fictionality within narrative theory have emphasized the permeability between global fictions and nonfictions. That is, global nonfictions often deploy elements of local fictionality without compromising their global commitments. This paper seeks to contribute to this ongoing exploration by arguing that nonfictional illness narratives deploy fictionality to enrich their referential content. I examine Brian Fies' graphic memoir Mom's Cancer, emphasizing how the text utilizes fictionality to address the complicated question of how to narrate the illness experience of others. I also move beyond the particulars of Mom's Cancer to consider (a) how the graphic medium lends itself to the inventions of fictionality, (b) why authors of illness narrative often turn to the indirections of fictionality to come to terms with the actual experiences of illness, and c) how a rhetorical understanding of fictionality can help answer recent challenges to the role of narrative studies in the medical humanities.