Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Elaine Scarry

  • On beauty and medical ethics

    John Eberly Jr.Anderson, South Carolina, United StatesLydia DugdaleNew York, United States Philosophers know that beauty is moving, arresting, enrapturing. It captures the attention and then calls the viewer to action—pursuing, partaking, creating. Beautiful things invite participation; we find ourselves lingering and listening long. We leave inspired and moved to respond. As artists and poets have…

  • The use of language in health and illness narratives

    Mariella ScerriVictor Grech Malta While I was as busy as anyoneon the sunny plain of life, I heardof you laid aside in the shadowyrecess where our sunshine ofhope and joy could neverpenetrate to you.– Harriet Martineau1 Literary works can illustrate the loneliness and social isolation experienced by people when they are sick.2 The chasm between health…

  • Ahab’s gift: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and the meaning of pain

    Xi ChenRochester, New York, United States In the summer months before my first year of medical school, I unfurled the pages of Moby Dick. Immersed in the novel’s adventurous spirit and Shakespearean prose, I followed the narrator from the piers of Nantucket into the Atlantic and waded through Captain Ahab’s quest for the legendary white…