Illness and nursing in the Brontë narratives

This thesis investigates from narratological and historical perspectives how illness paradoxically enriches the narratives of the Brontë sisters and how the three writers actively and creatively employed illness as a source of their literary imagination despite their forced passivity in the face of real illness experience. The first part of this thesis focuses on illness and explores it in three directions: literary style, plot, and narrative. Chapter 1 shows how illness can be represented in two opposing tones, those of the romantic and the real and traces the process of the evolution of Charlotte Brontë’s literary style from free romanticism into self-conscious realism. Chapter 2 first analyses how, as the major ‘narrative desire’, illness initiates, develops and ends the plot of the Brontës’ seven published novels and then considers the ‘reportability’ of illness-related events. Chapter 3 takes up the old question as to whether Nelly Dean of Wuthering Heights is a reliable narrator and contends that, as long as illness is perceived ambiguously, one can produce endless arbitrary interpretations of those who narrate illness-related events. The second part of this thesis deals with one of the dominant themes of the Brontës’ illness narratives: nursing. Chapter 4 considers the context of the Brontë sickroom scenes and looks at how the contemporary extensive notion of nursing is related to mothering. Assuming that mothering, or nursing by a maternal figure, is what the Brontë protagonists lack and seek for in the development of the plots, the following four chapters examine variations on the quest for the mother in Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Illness and Aging in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford

During 1851-53, Gaskell wrote two novels in tandem: Cranford, a collection of affectionate and comic stories of elderly widows and spinsters living peacefully in the eponymous village, and Ruth, a sensational stor y of a beautiful young seamstress who raises her illegitimate son pretending to be a widow, becomes a sick-nurse, and dies a dramatic death at the outbreak of an epidemic. The two pparently radically different novels actually share a central preoccupation with illness. In Cranford, however, the elderly characters are viewed primarily in relation to the aging body. This seemingly pacific novel, whose sphere is limited to a quiet village, is throughout overshadowed by mortality as a threatening undercurrent; this paper will contend that what illness ultimately indicates is thepassage of time and the inevitable movement of the heroine Matty towards death.It also investigates the distinctive of its narrative style, an issue inseparable from the narrated matter: the layer of first-person narratives and the dramatization of the act of telling and listening to stories. These complex formal mechanisms allow the narrator-character Mary Smith, a young woman from a big city, to observe, record, and even indirectly experience the daily lives and old customs of the elderly female community

Vascular Adhesion Protein-1 Blockade Suppresses Ocular Inflammation After Retinal Laser Photocoagulation in Mice

PURPOSE. To investigate the effect of the vascular adhesion protein-1 (VAP-1) inhibitor RTU-1096 on retinal morphologic changes and ocular inflammation after retinal laser photocoagulation in mice. METHODS. C57BL/6JJcl mice were fed a diet containing RTU-1096, a specific inhibitor for VAP-1, or a control diet ad libitum for 7 days. Laser photocoagulation was performed on the peripheral retina of the animals. The semicarbazide sensitive amine oxidase (SSAO) activities in plasma and chorioretinal tissues were measured. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images were acquired before and at 1, 3, and 7 days after laser photocoagulation, and thickness of the individual retinal layers was measured. Intravitreal leukocyte infiltration was assessed by histologic analysis. The expression level of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) in retinal tissues were examined by quantitative real-time PCR. RESULTS. One day after laser photocoagulation, the thickness of the outer nuclear layer (ONL) increased in the laser group compared with in the control group, and RTU-1096 administration abrogated the ONL thickening. Histologic analysis and OCT observation revealed that laser photocoagulation caused infiltration of inflammatory cells and the appearance of hyperreflective foci at the vitreoretinal surface, both of which were suppressed by RTU-1096 administration. In addition, systemic administration of RTU-1096 reduced upregulation of the leukocyte adhesion molecules ICAM-1 in the retina. CONCLUSIONS. The current data indicate that VAP-1/SSAO inhibition may be a potential therapeutic strategy for the prevention of macular edema secondary to scatter laser photocoagulation in patients with ischemic retinal diseases such as diabetic retinopathy

Observation of the 4f146s2 1S0−4f135d6s2(J=2)4f^{14}6s^{2}~^1S_0- 4f^{13}5d6s^{2}(J=2) clock transition at 431 nm in 171^{171}Yb

We report on the observation of the $4f^{14}6s^{2}~^1S_0- 4f^{13}5d6s^{2}(J=2)$ transition at 431 nm in $^{171}$Yb by depleting atoms in a magneto-optical trap formed by the $6s^{2}~^1S_0-6s6p~^3P_1$ intercombination transition. The absolute frequency of the transition to the $F=3/2$ state is determined to be $695~171~054~858.1(8.2)$~kHz against physical realization of Coordinated Universal Time maintained by the National Metrology Institute of Japan with a frequency comb. The $g$ factor of the transition to the $F=3/2$ state and the A hyperfine constant are measured to be $g_J=1.54(13)$ and 1123.273(13)~MHz, respectively. More precise spectroscopy of this transition can lead to searches for time variation of the fine structure constant and searches for new physics with isotope shift measurements.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure