“I had to make a hero of myself: Leonard Kriegel’s The Long Walk Home as Autopathographical Quest Narrative.”

Leonard Kriegel’s autobiographical memoir, The Long Walk Home can be read as an autopathographical quest narrative, or hero’s journey. While the quest-like nature of Kriegel’s memoir grounds his work in the masculine tradition of American literature, and masculine autobiography in particular, Kriegel’s work also performs functions indicative of the historical emergence of the contemporary illness narrative, which Arthur Frank says in The Wounded Storyteller, “reclaims the author’s right to tell what is her own experience, it reclaims a voice over and against the medical voice, and it reclaims a life beyond illness, even if illness is the occasion of writing” (5). As a result of the tensions inherent in “reclaiming” voice, Kriegel’s work functions politically, offering a counter-voice to the dominant discourse of illness and disability in the modern era.

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Counseling of Osing: a Counseling Based on Local Wisdom Represented in Lontar Yusuf Manuscript

ADDIN ◽

10.21043/addin.v14i2.9614 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 217

Author(s):

Arif Ainur Rofiq ◽

Muhamad Mustaqim ◽

Abdulloh Hamid

Keyword(s):

Content Analysis ◽

Modern Society ◽

Qualitative Approach ◽

Traditional Society ◽

The West ◽

Cultural Wealth ◽

Dominant Discourse ◽

The World ◽

Basic Concepts ◽

Modern Era

Counseling has been a need for people all over the world to the present day. This article will discuss discourses and practices of counseling in Osing as illustrated in Lontar Yusuf Manuscript. The study applies a qualitative approach with the technique of content analysis. This article argues that counseling has not only been a dominant discourse and practice of the modern society in the West but also a cultural wealth in the traditional society in Indonesia, as can be seen in Banyuwangi people (Osing). This article further argues that traditional local values of Osing—such as moco saloko (passing on God’s teachings through songs), ngedapteyan (being aware, patient, and resilient), angering sang putri (relieving sorrow), and munajah (praying to God)—has been a foundation for discourses and practices of Osing which can develop awareness of basic concepts of counseling and therapeutic techniques based on the importance of religion and godliness. The result of this study shows that counseling based on local wisdom of Osing can contribute to enrich discourse and practices of counseling in the modern era.

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Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780190461454.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Espen Hammer

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

The Novel ◽

Work Of Art ◽

Mass Society ◽

The Individual ◽

Modern Era ◽

Quest Narrative

Franz Kafka’s The Trial stands as one of the most influential and emblematic novels of the twentieth century. Yet, as the overused adjective “Kafkaesque” suggests, rather than as a work of art in its full complexity, it has all too often been received as an expression of some vaguely felt cultural or psychological malaise—a symbol, perhaps, of all that we do not seem to comprehend, but that nevertheless is felt to haunt and influence us in inexplicable ways. Its plot, however, is both complex and completely unforgettable. A man stands accused of a crime he appears not to have any recollection of having committed and whose nature is never revealed to him. In what may ultimately be described as a tragic quest-narrative, the protagonist’s search for truth and clarity (about himself, his alleged guilt, and the system he is facing) progressively leads to increasing confusion before ending with his execution in an abandoned quarry. Josef K., its famous anti-hero, is an everyman faced with an anonymous, inscrutable yet seemingly omnipotent power. For all its fundamental strangeness, the novel seems to address defining concerns of the modern era: a sense of radical estrangement, the belittling of the individual in a bureaucratically controlled mass society, the rise perhaps of totalitarianism, as well as the fearful nihilism of a world apparently abandoned by God....

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Refusing to be silenced: Claiming chaos narrative

Frontiers of Narrative Studies ◽

10.1515/fns-2021-0006 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 110-123

Author(s):

Colleen Donnelly

Keyword(s):

Mental Illness ◽

The Body ◽

Medical Community ◽

The Third ◽

External Agents ◽

Chaos Narrative ◽

Wounded Storyteller ◽

The Individual ◽

Quest Narrative

Abstract In the Wounded Storyteller, Arthur Frank proposed three types of narrative told by people attempting to reclaim their voice and the body made alien by illness – restitution, quest, and chaos. Restitution narrative has dominated media; in it, the patient simply experiences the disease and is presented passively, and the medical community is presented as having agency. In quest narrative, the experiencer becomes their own hero; their suffering brings knowledge which is then shared with the audience who bears witness and is charged with learning the lesson the experience conveys. In quest narrative, while speakers have agency that they are often robbed of in the restitution narrative, they are saddled with the imperative to inspire others. This makes the narrator a hero, but we need to ask, where does the imperative come from that demands that the narrator become a hero and an example for others? If that imperative comes from the audience and market demands, we need to recognize how they are dictating the manner in which stories are told, determining which are selected by publishers and media venues to be disseminated. The third type, the chaos narrative, is rarely encountered by audiences because the chaos narrative is usually erased. This “anti-narrative” can only be lived and cannot be told. The individual living with chronic physical or mental illness or a disability, who cannot be stoic and turn their story into a quest narrative, is rendered mute. Since restitution narrative is also unavailable to these individuals, their stories are left unspoken or unwritten. Their stories have largely been controlled by external agents. Failure to meet normate expectations has meant rejection. How prescriptive norms arose that delegitimatized the authority of chaos narrative must be understood if authentic chaos narrative is to be spoken and written.

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