Asthma as a Literary Symbol. A Cultural Approach to Medicine

Abstract

The emerging studies of medical humanities propose a cultural approach to medicine that questions positivism, pragmatism, the hegemonic nature and the tendency to objectify and reify that exists in medical practices throughout history. Within this theoretical framework, the present work attempts to explore asthma from a cultural perspective, focused on its metaphorization in literature through Isabel Allende’s The House of Spirits, Anne-Sophie Brasme’s Breathe, Sheila Kohler’s Cracks and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. There is a close relationship between the representation of marginality, the Derridian concept of breathing, and asthmatic symptoms, a representation that helps create, in turn, a healing effect characteristic of illness narratives.