Abstract
Despite hundreds of books and articles about suffering, its full nature eludes us. Statistics offer only fleeting glimpses of the distress and agony suffered by some in the course of everyday life. Narratives offer richer, more detailed portrayals of experienced pain and suffering. The narratives from stories given in this chapter were all found on the Internet. First, 15 websites were selected because each contained at least one story of personal suffering. The collection of stories selected offers a snapshot of the quality of suffering experienced by people using the web for writing stories in 2013. The stories were extremely diverse but overall depicted a remarkable amount of raw pain and suffering. The narratives were analyzed within the structure of the eight cultural frames of suffering introduced earlier in Chap. 1. The story narratives as a whole make it clear that people that tell their stories on websites all assume that there is a direct relationship between suffering and the degradation of peoples’ quality of life. They also reveal how the conceptual objective to relieve human suffering raises new issues of humane values and the validity of specific moral imperatives.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Alexander, J. C. (2012). Trauma: A social theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bergman, C. (2009). Another day in paradise: International humanitarian workers tell their stories. Eugene: Wipf & Stock.
Boss, P. (1999). Ambiguous loss. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Chapman, C. R., & Volinn, E. (2005). Narrative as a window on chronic disabling back pain. In D. B. Carr, J. Loeser, & D. B. Morris (Eds.), Narrative, pain, and suffering (pp. 73–86). Seattle: International Association for the Study of Pain Press.
Charon, R. (2005). A narrative medicine for pain. In J. Carr, D. Loeser, & D. B. Morris (Eds.), Narrative, pain and suffering (pp. 45–53). Seattle: International Association for the Study of Pain Press.
Illouz, E. (2003). Oprah winfrey and the glamour of misery. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kim, Y., Schulz, R., & Carver, C. S. (2007). Benefit finding in the cancer caregiving experience. Psychosomatic Medicine, 69, 283–291.
Minaya, P., Baumstarck, K., Berbis, J., et al. (2012). The CareGiver oncology quality of life questionnaire (CarGOQoL): Development and validation of an instrument to measure the quality of life of the caregivers of patients with cancer. European Journal of Cancer, 48(6), 904–911.
Montgomery, R. J. V., Rowe, J. M., & Kosloski, K. (2007). Family Caregiving. In J. A. Blackburn & C. N. Dulmus (Eds.), Handbook of gerontology: Evidence-based approaches to theory, practice, and policy. New York: Wiley.
Mulvany, A. P. (2010). Flood of memories: Narratives of flood and loss in Tamil South India. Publicly accessible Penn Dissertations. Paper 383. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/383. Accessed 18 May 2013.
Neff, K. (2011). Self-compassion: Stop beating yourself up and leave insecurity behind. New York: HarperCollins.
Niv, D. (2005). The chronic pain narrative and quality of life. In D. B. Carr, J. D. Loeser, & D. B. Morris (Eds.), Narrative, pain, and suffering (pp. 53–72). Seattle: International Association for the Study of Pain Press.
Noonan, A. E., Tennstedt, S. L., & Rebelsky, F. G. (1996). Making the best of it: Themes of meaning among informal caregivers to elderly. Journal of Aging Studies, 10(4), 313–327.
Peter, (2007). Why I am a humanitarian aid worker. In eBook, The road to the horizon. http://www.theroadtothehorizon.org/2009/03/why-i-am-humanitarian-aid-worker.html. Accessed 13 Feb 2013. Note: the author identifies only as ‘Peter’.
Sennett, R. (2000). The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. New York: W. W. Norton.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Anderson, R.E. (2014). Narrative Accounts of the Agony of Suffering. In: Human Suffering and Quality of Life. SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7669-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7669-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-7668-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-7669-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)