The Crucial Role of Literature in Interpreting Pain as Represented in Mona Awad’s All’s Well

Abstract

The representation of invisible disability, such as chronic pain, has increased in the past decade or two. However, there are still shortcomings to its adequate portrayal in literature. Mona Awad’s All’s Well is a novel that accurately renders the reality of chronic pain while highlighting the problems surrounding the depiction of pain in literature. This thesis aims to discuss the lacking awareness and vocabulary of pain, and consideration that every pain experience is unique. The introduction of this paper explains the key terms of disability and pain, the genre of the chosen novel and its context. The methodology includes an analysis of previous scholarship and a close reading of All’s Well. The literature review discusses disability and pain in literature based on the works of key critics Sontag, Neilson, Scarry, and Chivers. The empirical study consists of an analysis of All’s Well. It addresses the shortcomings concerning the language of pain and emphasises the importance of awareness of the pain experience on the example of the protagonist of the novel. The empirical part analyses also the intertextual references to Shakespeare’s plays All’s Well That Ends Well and Macbeth by which the pain experience as well as the changes of a pain sufferer during and after being in pain are treated in Awad’s novel. The conclusion summarises the main findings of the thesis