Narrative Ethics, Authentic Integrity, and an Intrapersonal Medical Encounter in David Foster Wallace’s “Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR”
In Wallace’s short story “Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR,” a vice president (VP) suffers cardiac arrest. As an account representative (AR) administers CPR, he discovers his own impersonality mirrored back to him by the VP—a disturbing vision of himself that the AR wishes to escape. Beca...
| Autor principal: | |
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| Tipo de documento: | Electrónico Artículo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Verificar disponibilidad: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Publicado: |
2015
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| En: |
Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
Año: 2015, Volumen: 24, Número: 1, Páginas: 96-106 |
| Otras palabras clave: | B
Authenticity
B Narrative Ethics B authentic integrity B David Foster Wallace B Integrity |
| Acceso en línea: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Sumario: | In Wallace’s short story “Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR,” a vice president (VP) suffers cardiac arrest. As an account representative (AR) administers CPR, he discovers his own impersonality mirrored back to him by the VP—a disturbing vision of himself that the AR wishes to escape. Because modern moral theories would have the AR respond impersonally to the VP, those theories would only exacerbate his existential predicament. In contrast, by regarding the AR’s act as one that he, in particular, should perform, narrative ethics can discern a resolution for his predicament: because the AR still values his diminished capacities for care and spontaneity, this situation offers him an opportunity to revive those former traits. Doing so would give him greater authentic integrity, or narrative continuity with the most important aspects of his past. Authentic integrity can serve narrative ethics as a helpful starting point for understanding how the life stories of patients, clinicians, and others might appropriately unfold. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-2147 |
| Obras secundarias: | Enthalten in: Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0963180114000346 |
