Sam Whitfield
ANTH 272
Grant Glass
February 27th, 2020
Specifically looking at the reading assigned for Wednesday, February 26th, Dunlap-Shohl’s graphic novel seems to share many characteristics with Frank’s model of a chaos narrative. The story up to this point doesn’t have much narrative direction, with most of it being about trying to understand Parkinson’s. The second chapter exemplifies this, as Dunlap-Shohl attempts to describe and explain much of the terminology for symptoms coming from the disease. Another quote that seems to align with Frank’s chaos narrative is the description of Parkinson’s as being “progressive and incurable” (Dunlap-Shohl 7). Unlike a restitution narrative, there would be no miracle cure for Dunlap-Shohl, and he would likely have this disease for the rest of his life. Another piece of evidence that makes the first few chapters of this graphic novel reminiscent of a chaos narrative is the interview with the personification of Parkinson’s in chapter 3. This personification describes, in painful detail, that it wants to take everything from Dunlap-Shohl, best exemplified by the line “I want it all, your entire self, the physical and the emotional.” (Dunlap-Shohl 26). Right after this powerful and utterly terrifying line, Parkinson’s concludes the interview, with the line “But don’t worry… I’ll be back.” (Dunlap-Shohl 29). While this personification has not taken much from Dunlap-Shohl yet, this line gives the impression that the disease will continue, relentlessly, until it has what it wants. Therefore, due to the jagged sequence of the narrative up until this point, Parkinson’s attempt to rip Dunlap-Shohl’s voice and identity away, and the impossibility of being cured, the graphic novel seems to follow closely with how Frank would describe a chaos narrative.