Research Article
29 January 2025

In the Kingdom of the Sick: Abjection, Mutuality, and the Afflicted in Recent Pandemic Fiction

Publication: University of Toronto Quarterly
Volume 93, Number 4

Abstract

During a pandemic, the omnipresence of the virus dictates that we negotiate our proximity to illness. We are brought face-to-face with the abject (the infected, the dying, the dead) provoking disgust and fear, but also, significantly, recognition. Our initial (and sometimes violent) reaction reflects an entrenched refusal to recognize any similarity between ourselves and the abject. Quarantining and social distancing are proven and (somewhat) effective methods for containing the spread of disease, but they also solidify the distinction between the sick and the well. The drive for immunity – an exemption from that which threatens the community –is a salient feature of many contemporary pandemic fictions. At the same time, other works push against that impulse, accentuating the need for the communal – an assumption of mutual vulnerability. Authors of recent Covid-centric texts (Gary Shteyngart, Elizabeth Strout, Weike Wang) illustrate how individuals oscillate between the contradictory desires for community and immunity – for being both a part and apart. In contrast, Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat and Ali Smith’s Companion Piece highlight the transformative possibilities of coming to terms with abjection and recalibrate the community/immunity balance in the light of present or future pandemics.

Get full access to this article

View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.

Works Cited

Ariès, Philippe. “Invisible Death.” Wilson Quarterly 5.1 (1981): 105–15.
Belling, Catherine. “Overwhelming the Medium: Fiction and the Trauma of Pandemic Influenza in 1918.” Literature and Medicine 28.1 (2009): 55–81.
Butler, Judith. What World Is This? A Pandemic Phenomenology. New York: Columbia UP, 2022.
Christiaens, Tim, and Stijn De Cauwer. “The Biopolitics of Immunity in Times of COVID-19: An Interview with Roberto Esposito.” Antipode Online 16 June 2020. https://antipodeonline.org/2020/06/16/interview-with-roberto-esposito/.
Esposito, Roberto. Common Immunity: Biopolitics in the Age of the Pandemic. Trans. Zakiya Hanafi. Hoboken, NJ: Polity, 2023.
Grant, Adam. “We’re Living through the ‘Boring Apocalypse’.” New York Times 10 Dec. 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/opinion/covid-omicron-psychology-fear.html.
Hall, Sarah. Burntcoat. New York: HarperCollins, 2021.
Kelly, Stuart. “Book Review: Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat.” The Scotsman 28 Sept. 2021. https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/book-review-burntcoatby-sarah-hall-3399900.
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia UP, 1982.
Lear, Jonathan. Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2022.
Ma, Ling. Severance. New York: Picador, 2018.
Meyer, Lily. “The Pandemic Novel That’s Frozen in Time.” The Atlantic 27 Sept. 2022. https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/09/lucy-by-the-seaelizabeth-strout-pandemic-book/671513/.
Pfaller, Larissa. “Theorizing the Virus: Abjection and the COVID-19 Pandemic.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 40. 9–10 (2020): 821–29.
Pollard, Clare. Delphi. New York: Avid Reader, 2022.
Rudge, Trudy. “Julia Kristeva: Abjection, Embodiment and Boundaries.” The Palgrave Handbook of Social Theory in Health, Illness and Medicine. Ed. F. Collyer. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 504–19.
Shapiro, Johanna. “Walking a Mile in Their Patients’ Shoes: Empathy and Othering in Medical Students’ Education.” Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 3 (2008).
Shildrick, Margrit. Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the Vulnerable Self. London: Sage Publications, 2002.
Shteyngart, Gary. Our Country Friends. New York: Random House, 2021.
Smith, Ali. Companion Piece. New York: Pantheon, 2022.
Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978.
Strout, Elizabeth. Lucy by the Sea. New York: Random House, 2022.
Wald, Priscilla. Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2008.
Wang, Weike. Joan Is Okay. New York: Random House, 2022.

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Go to University of Toronto Quarterly
University of Toronto Quarterly
Volume 93Number 4November 2024
Pages: 705 - 722

History

Published in print: November 2024
Published online: 29 January 2025

Keywords:

  1. pandemic fiction
  2. mutuality
  3. Covid
  4. community/immunity
  5. Ali Smith
  6. Gary Shteyngart

Authors

Affiliations

Tim Gauthier
Biography: Tim Gauthier
Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Metrics & Citations

Metrics

VIEW ALL METRICS

Related Content

Citations

If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.

Format





Download article citation data for:
Tim Gauthier
University of Toronto Quarterly 2024 93:4, 705-722

View Options

Restore your content access

Enter your email address to restore your content access:

Note: This functionality works only for purchases done as a guest. If you already have an account, log in to access the content to which you are entitled.

View options

PDF

View PDF

EPUB

View EPUB

Full Text

View Full Text

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Copy the content Link

Share on social media

About Cookies On This Site

We use cookies to improve user experience on our website and measure the impact of our content.

Learn more

×