Multiple stories, one narrator
cancer
CANCER, REMISSION, STILL
The participants' stories had different plots depending on what they were talking about and the situation they were describing. In illness narratives, all the suggested plots appear alternatively and repeatedly. Still, at any given moment, there is one plot that predominates. Accordingly, the participants revealed the coexistence of multiple plots, thus serving as an example of the fact every storyteller is telling multiple stories.Though Mark has an explicit quest, his story is just as much a story of restitution. It illustrates the importance of having an old life to fall back upon as he had completed an education and even had a job prior to his diagnosis.In some of the stories, the narratives of chaos and restitution coexist and fight each other. Anita lives a relatively normal life, still feels the need to hide the side effects of her treatment as though she has something to prove, namely that she is still the same person. While she tells herself that everything will be as it was before, that she is “a regular person and no longer a cancer survivor”, she is frustrated by the appearance of new side effects. “I realize I have no idea what the future brings,” she says, thereby admitting she will likely forever be a member of the remission society and continue to be neither sick, nor well.