Literary analysis reveals shame's impact on recovery from pediatric cancer, suggesting deeper connections between illness and identity.
Situated at the intersection of literature and medicine, Autobiography of a Face offers a unique opportunity to explore the interrelationship of shame and illness. By interleaving what Grealy thought she knew with what she later learned (but still struggles to comprehend), Autobiography of a Face represents shame as a kind of epistemological fall, the leap from a world of unknowing that Grealy takes as she looks back at her experience of life-altering illness. In her autobiographical account, Grealy examines what it means to literally and figuratively "face" shame—to both acknowledge and give expression to it in the aftermath of pediatric cancer and recovery.
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Harriet Hustis (2025) studied this question.
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