The Culture of Sensibility permeates both Burney’s and Austen’s novels. Burney and Austen both use anomalous bodies and minds as a vehicle to explore the performative requirements of the Culture of Sensibility. The performance of disability, including bodily manifestations of nervous disorders, melancholy, and hypochondria, allows sensibility to become visible on the body. This dissertation examines the similarities between Burney’s and Austen’s portrayals of disability in order to understand how Austen’s texts engage and reflect Burney’s influence. Despite the frequency with which disability is necessary for the production of Sensibility, the connection between disability and Sensibility remains unexplored. This dissertation investigates the connection between various performances of disability with the Culture of Sensibility and exposes the narrative reliance on the anomalous body in both Burney’s and Austen’s novels. Through a combination of disability theory and performance theory, this dissertation examines the Culture of Sensibility’s reliance on the non-normative body for the performance of sentimental behaviour. Disability theory allows for the examination of the anomalous body beyond that of a strictly medical definition. Mansfield Park’s Fanny Price illustrates the difference between the medical and social construction of disability. Using only the medical model, Fanny’s debility represents her poor health; however, the social construction of disability connects Fanny’s debility to the fetishization of the anomalous body by the Culture of Sensibility. Disability features in Burney’s and Austen’s courtship narratives, as temporary physical and mental impairment provide opportunities for physical proofs of Sensibility, somatic communication of desire, and narrative resolution. Both Burney’s and Austen’s illness narratives of characters with permanent disabilities reveal concerns of the appropriation of the ii invalid’s favourable position within the Culture of Sensibility through an affected performance of disability. Male characters with temporary or permanent physical impairment suffer effeminization and exclusion from courtship narratives, whereas instances of female invalidism contribute to successful resolution of courtship narratives. I conclude that Burney’s and Austen’s reliance on the anomalous body to prove sensibility indicates that the late-eighteenth century sentimental novel normalizes the anomalous body.

This thesis aims to highlight the relevance of patients engaging with their patient narratives as a tool in recovery from illness and in regaining their sense of agency. / This thesis aims to rename the term ‘illness narrative’ to a more disclosive writing called the ‘patient narrative’ as a means to focus on the patient as a person who experiences illness, instead of the illness label. Exploring patient narratives, such as Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, as a form of disclosive writing will highlight the need for this tool to act as a more personal and effective communication between patients, healthcare professionals, and caregivers. The thesis is presented in two parts: a critical essay and my patient narrative. Part One is a critical essay that explores how engaging with patient narratives contributes to the patient reclaiming their agency and sense of identity. In three subsections, the essay highlights the difficulties patients go through with illnesses or rare medical events, as well as the emotional and physical impacts that they experience, going beyond medical symptoms. The essay focuses on three points separated into three sections. The sections are: Recognizing Pathologies and Injuries, Communication and Language in the Patient Experience, and Reclaiming Agency. Part Two is my autopathography centring on the complications encountered while seeking a common surgery. After general anaesthesia, I develop Postoperative Cognitive Changes of unknown aetiology. This greatly complicates the situation when surgery is needed, and the ensuing cognitive impairments have lasting impacts on me academically, personally, emotionally, and socially. While both parts are distinct, together they mirror how patient narratives have the iv potential to bridge the communication gap between medicine and humanities. As such, patient narratives can communicate connections between patients, medical communities, and a broader audience which acts to underscore the need of a deeper awareness for the importance of compassion and empathy for those experiencing any form of health challenge. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / Patient narratives are a form of expressive writing that enables the patient to regain their sense of identity and agency following a health illness. When a person first becomes a patient, they leave their known world of familiarity and comfort and enter into a new one on their health journey. Their language and ways of communicating are required to adapt to the world of medicine. The patient loses their sense of identity and agency as a result of their illness. This thesis is presented in two parts, a critical essay and my brief patient memoir, and will explore how the patient, when engaging with patient narratives such as Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, can reclaim their agency and sense of identity. The first part is an essay exploring the contributions of patient narratives. The second part is my memoir, exemplifying a patient narrative.

This mixed-media memoir uses a variety of forms from short epigrammatic essays to straightforward stories and graphic narratives to explore the author’s coming-of-age experiences augmented by chronic illness. Trying to succeed in the film industry, romance, and family situations, the young female narrator navigates the often unexpected or disappointing consequences of having an autonomic nervous system disorder. Relationships between conflicting identities emerge—between healthy versus sick self, projected/envisioned versus actual self, and tough versus vulnerable self—as the narrator journeys toward a more complete and accepting self-understanding.

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