Autonomy, Determinism, and Death in Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air

Abstract: An illness memoir written by a terminally ill person at the end of his/her life is a thanatoir, an example of which is Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air (2016). The leitmotif explored in this essay is the overlapping of autonomy and causal determinism in Kalanithi's thanatoir. While dying of cancer, Kalanithi becomes a father and a writer. And in the end, he lets go of his breathing support. The tacit dichotomy between such ostensibly autonomous choices of Kalanithi and those that are already causally determined forms the core of this essay. This article also assesses the exercise of autonomy in the midst of death and asks if autonomy is, in fact, possible vis-à-vis causal determinism.