{"id":912,"date":"2016-02-18T23:08:11","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T04:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=912"},"modified":"2016-02-18T23:08:11","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T04:08:11","slug":"unpredictable-bodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2016\/02\/18\/unpredictable-bodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpredictable Bodies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCancer is an unpredictable condition. It is the body turning upon itself. We don\u2019t understand that yet. We know what happens but not why it happens or how to stop it\u201d (Winterson 105). <\/span><\/p>\n

Louise\u2019s actions in the face of the \u201cunpredictable condition\u201d of her cancer suggest that she uses the circumstances of \u201cthe body turning upon itself\u201d to create for herself a new \u201clife narrative,\u201d to use Halbertstam\u2019s term, that is not contingent upon a desire for longevity (2). Although the chronology of <\/span>Written on the Body <\/span><\/i>is imprecise, Louise states in a conversation with the narrator that she first saw them two years ago (84). When Elgin reveals to the narrator that Louise has cancer, he also states that Louise has known about her cancer for two years (101). I want to read Louise\u2019s decision to pursue the narrator as linked to her finding out that she has cancer. Although the reader is not given insight into Louise\u2019s perspective on her own disease, it is likely that learning that she has cancer would have altered time in some way for Louise. Specifically, I believe that Louise\u2019s awareness of her disease altered time for her in the same was as Halberstam describes AIDS as having altered time for the queer community. Louise\u2019s cancer, and her subsequent knowledge of \u201cwhat happens but not why it happens or how to stop it\u201d created a \u201cconstantly diminishing future\u201d for her, one in which there was no possibility of a life that revolved around the \u201creproductive temporality\u201d which Halberstam sees as the central feature of normative time (4). By deliberately seeking out the narrator\u2019s address and creating the circumstances of their meeting, Louise enacts the unpredictability of her disease and begins the work of creating an alternative \u201clife narrative\u201d for herself in which she not only exists in \u201cqueer time\u201d but also purposefully removes herself from the normative structure of her marriage to Elgin, which binds her to the normative timeline on which reproduction is the next scheduled item. While Elgin and the narrator see the unpredictability of Louise\u2019s cancer as a thing to be controlled, Louise embraces the fact that her body is \u201cturning upon itself\u201d and denying her a normative lifespan and pursuit of longevity by rejecting a marriage-bound, reproduction-based \u201clife schedule\u201d and pursuing unpredictability (Halberstam 1).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCancer is an unpredictable condition. It is the body turning upon itself. We don\u2019t understand that yet. We know what happens but not why it happens or how to stop it\u201d (Winterson 105). Louise\u2019s actions in the face of the \u201cunpredictable condition\u201d of her cancer suggest that she uses the circumstances of \u201cthe body turning … Continue reading Unpredictable Bodies<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3012,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3012"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}