Cancer = Shame = Writing

"I have cancer from the accumulation of shame I have endured in my life... from self-loathing the body turns malignant and begins to eat away at itself" (145).
Mrs. Curren battles with the pain that she endured from cancer, and in my opinion, she sees her disease as the punishment for the many attrocities taking place. Beyond this, cancer and the resulting pain acts as the catalyst motivating her writing. The shame and pain that she feels is often times what motivates her to complete the work, without which, the beauty expressed on the pages would not be possible. I find this very interesting in that this coping mechanism of writing is seen throughout much of the recent works. It seems to be a combonation of DuBois and Rich, in that Mrs. Curren not only uses writing to cope with the many emotions she faces, but is also using her writing a sort of call to action. As DuBois used writing to explain and portray the many horrors of a society, I beleive that Mrs. Curren, as motivated by her shame and pain, also depicts the horrors of a society wrought with war and death.