Life & Death in Literature: Understanding Medicine in 'Accident' by Christa Wolf

1. A Presentation by Jill Danker Accident: A Day’s News

2. Accident

3. “Patient” • Literary work by Christa Wolf • East German author • Depicts in “real-time” a woman trying to understand aspects of health and medicine • Surgery • Radiation Poisoning • Life & Death itself

4. “Symptoms” • Medicine viewed as abstract and concrete in novella • Concrete: Narrator’s brother’s surgery • Abstract: Radiation poisoning; spread of radiation • Overarching: finite nature of life itself

5. Symptom 1: Concrete Medicine • Surgical procedures depicted within the work • Large, scientific words often used • Very specific and meticulous wording • Vivid imagery

6. Examples • “a metallic instrument…skirting your cerebral membrane, presumably pushing aside the brain matter” (10) • “peeling out from its healthy environment the tumor which was nestled very, very snugly up against the pituitary gland—root and branch, indeed down to the last cell” (25)

7. Symptom 2: Abstract Medicine • Personified in “patient” as radiation poisoning/radiation spread • Purposefully vague • Imprecise • Details withheld

8. Examples • Radiation often referred to as “invisible cloud” (9) • “how quickly does radioactivity spread, at best and worst?” (9) • “a new name for danger” (15)

9. Radiation • “energy that comes from a source and travels through space and may be able to penetrate various materials” (Health Physics Society) • Emission of excess energy of radioactive atoms (unstable) • Most dangerous form: Gamma radiation

10. Radiation Exposure • Single, high-level exposure to radiation may cause health problems • Increases occurrence of certain diseases • Cancer, some genetic diseases • Prolonged exposure at low levels can be detrimental to health as well • Working around medical radiation (X-rays, etc.) • Workers must keep track of how much radiation they are exposed to

11. Radiation Spread • Gamma rays • Move through air, water, and solid material • Radioactive material • Tough to contain • Can get blown by wind, rain, etc. • Can be absorbed in plants and animals

12. Chernobyl

13. Chernobyl Disaster • Massive nuclear reactor disaster • Occurred in Ukraine in 1986 • Can be considered worst nuclear power plant accident in history • Major difficulties containing radioactive waste and radiation • Extent of the damage done to community and surrounding countries still unknown

15. What does this mean for the Patient? Concrete Medicine: • Shows a general and natural sense of unease • Helps reader understand narrator’s understanding of life & death • Small things make a big difference • “The Devil is in the details”

16. What this means for Patient (Cont’d) Abstract Medicine: • Shows shared sense of unknowing • Readers understand that narrator is highly concerned with knowing all parts of life • Subsequently controlling those aspects • Shows desperation and fear of narrator

17. “Diagnosis” • Abstract and concrete forms of medicine show to reader: • Narrator’s understanding of life and death • Narrator’s thought process while dealing with finite nature of life • Contrast between the two aspects themselves