Klass PE, Barnell ED; International Conference on AIDS.
Int Conf AIDS. 1992 Jul 19-24; 8: D478 (abstract no. PoD 5547).
Department of Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, Boston City Hospital, MA.
The HIV epidemic is tracked by the news media, which attempt to provide an up-to-date reflection of the changing story. The epidemic has also been, and will continue to be made into stories by writers who use HIV disease in novels of modern life. In these works of fiction, HIV can serve many purposes, literary, political, and narratologic. Sontag, in "Illness As Metaphor," showed how illnesses are endowed in fiction with particular attributes, literal and metaphoric, and has extended her analysis to "AIDS and its Metaphors." How is this new disease used in fiction, and to what ends? Lists of works of fiction dealing with HIV and AIDS as major subject matter were obtained by surveying book editors and buyers for bookstores, and from book review periodicals. Over thirty such works of fiction are analyzed Epidemiologically, the demographic characteristics of characters infected with HIV are examined, including race, sex, geographic location, risk factors, age, and ethnic group. Demographic comparisons are made between the profile of the epidemic as depicted in fiction and its actual epidemiology, raising the question of whether the disproportionate presence in fiction, both as subjects and authors, of people representative of the "first wave" of the epidemic is due to a time lag, or whether it reflects differential access to the prerogatives of authorship and publication. The medical details of HIV infection and HIV-related illness as presented in contemporary fiction are analyzed in detail, including symptoms at time of initial HIV testing, nature of opportunistic infections, reasons for hospitalizations, frequency of death, time period from diagnosis to death, and cause of death. Aspects of medical treatment are also considered, including experience with antiretrovirals, other medical therapies, participation in experimental trials, use of alternative healing, and use of unapproved drugs. The roles of political activism and government policy are traced. Qualitative and descriptive considerations of literal and figurative aspects of the portrayal of HIV and AIDS are also presented. Unique aspects of this infection influence how it is used as part of the plot of a sustained work of fiction social and moral overtones compel the repetition of certain key scenes and basic messages. The portrayal of the medical profession is examined for literal dramatic characteristics and for underlying metaphor and authorial attitudes. The assimilation of HIV into fiction shows how this virus has become a part of daily life. Fiction offers an opportunity for the detailed expression of many aspects of life in the age of AIDS. Finally, fiction always offers a possibility of immortality, of telling the stories of the epidemic in voices which will continue to resonate, and continue to be read, even if the virus itself should vanish from the headlines and from our lives. This project analyzes the first attempts at writing fiction about HIV, and thereby incorporating a new virus into literary discourse and literary tradition.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- AIDS Vaccines
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Behavior
- Disease Outbreaks
- HIV Infections
- HIV Seropositivity
- Homosexuality, Male
- Humans
- Medicine
- Metaphor
- Pharmaceutical Preparations
- Risk Factors
- Sexual Behavior
- epidemiology
Other ID:
UI: 102200756
From Meeting Abstracts