RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The limits of pity in <em>Bartleby</em> and <em>Moby Dick</em>
JF Medical Humanities
JO J Med Humanit
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP 59
OP 63
DO 10.1136/jmh.2008.000620
VO 34
IS 2
A1 L Rosenblatt
YR 2008
UL http://mh.bmj.com/content/34/2/59.abstract
AB Failures in the emotional connection between doctors and their patients tend to be reported in terms of compassion fatigue, burn-out, secondary trauma and depression in overlapping and somewhat interchangeable ways. In Moby Dick and Bartleby, Melville interrogates the culturally accepted descriptions of pity and explores the reasons for the limits in human pity he observed and depicted. In an attempt to understand whether the feelings of pity that a patient's suffering can evoke in physicians are sustainable, desirable, or counter-productive, Melville's narratives, along with that of a woman who, while living with advanced cancer experiences the breakdown of a key medical relationship, will be considered.