BY Silvia Miranda & Alicia Renou
In My Sister’s Keeper we easily notice how much this stage in the progression of the disease is experienced as a ravage of Kate’s femininity, since she tries to use hair prosthesis, scarves or anything that will allow her to hide the visible signs of the disease but no matter how much she tries, she doesn’t want to go out anymore disgusted by her body image that is reflected in the mirror. She thinks she looks “ugly” and reduced to the status of someone with cancer by others: a feeling commonly shared by many patients (Bourgeois-Guérin, 2013). In view of this reality, her mother chooses to shave her head as a gesture of “support” and compassion towards her daughter. We can suppose that this gesture leads to give a complete twist to Kate’s representations. Indeed, the fact that it is her own mother who shaves her head is important because the maternal image is our first representation of femininity when one comes into the world. By perceiving her mother without hair, it helps her to see in mirror her status as a woman despite her alopecia.
Beyond hair loss, the loss of weight or gain is also difficult to live because it directly changes the appearance and shows a weakening of the state of health. We can observe that Kate’s weight loss is due to many vomiting, often related to the unpleasant taste that remains in the mouth after chemotherapy, a more general loss of appetite, physical inactivity or sometimes because of depression itself. In the spirit of patients this weight loss often returns to a decline of oneself, and can lead to feelings of shame for his body (Bourgeois-Guérin, 2013 ; Fortin & al, 2010).
Tiredness is another symptom that emerged from Kate’s illness. In addition to the reject of her body there is also a physical reality that gradually takes her away from the outside world. Indeed, the many treatments, round trips to the hospital but also the loss of appetite, vomiting and physical sufferings normally contribute to the energy exhaustion of patients. In Kate’s case the disease lasts and persists in time which exhausts her both physically and mentally. As a result, her physical state makes her prisoner of her body to the point where she can no longer move herself and she is forced to renounce to the activities of the world around her (Bourgeois-Guérin, 2013). This is not without any noticeable effect on her self-esteem all the more in a society that depicts the woman as hyperactive and who also maintains these representations (Rosman, 2004). Here, not only Kate is forced to endure and slow down her life, but she also feels guilty of having unwittingly forced her mother to stop her professional life. Furthermore, throughout the film, we can note about the repercussions of the pathology on the family system. It is a significant aspect that would also be quite interesting to address in another work. In that sense, the illness and the tiredness that it entails are not inconsequential on the social relations of patients (Bourgeois-Guérin, 2013, and Francequin, 2012) as well as those of their family environment.
In conclusion, My Sister’s Keeper will enlighten you on the complicated matter that is the end of life and more specifically on the wish of a young patient to die in peace, with dignity and without therapeutic obstinacy. It will also allow you to comprehend about the distress of a family against the health deterioration of a loved one. You will live with them through different stages and feelings in order to reach the acceptance of the end passing through denial, anger, bargaining and depression (Kübler-Ross and Kessler). Finally, you will better understand the incapacity to imagine how in some isolated cases, death can be the only way out after many years of fighting and suffering and how love can persist after life. Certailny, it is the most important lesson in life.
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