Breast Cancer, Rhetoric, and Identity: Mao Kobayashi's Blog

Introduction

Breast cancer ranks among the most common types of cancers affecting women around the globe. In addition to being a dreaded disease, cancer in general attracts culturally biased opinions. As a result, those who are diagnosed with cancer are effectively forced to manage the disease in silence. In the most conservative communities, cancer patients are secluded and isolated even by family members (Bhatti, Salek & Finlay, 2011).

In Japan, breast cancer is among the most common cancers affecting women, and statistics show that incidences are only increasing with time. More than 40,000 women in Japan are diagnosed with breast cancer annually. Japan is a largely conservative society in which there is a persistent fear of cancer and a stigma attached to cancer patients (Daher, 2012; Matsuyama et al., 2007). As a result, cancer patients are often compelled to keep the news to themselves, to immediate family, and to close friends only.

Some cancer patients, however, defy this trend and break the silence to announce their diagnosis publicly. One such person was Mao Kobayashi. Kobayashi was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34. She was a news anchor working in a society with deeply conservative views of cancer, yet she made the decision to break from tradition and announce her diagnosis through a blog. This research paper discusses how the disease changed her perspectives on life and how Japanese society influenced her perspectives about the disease. The analysis is conducted through rhetorical analysis methodology.

Data Analysis and Rhetorical Methodology

Rhetorical analysis is the methodology used for data analysis in this paper. In particular, narrative criticism is the type of rhetorical analysis applied. This method is used for analysis of stories, narratives, and accounts with the objective of determining whether the message the narrator seeks to convey has been effectively communicated. Through this methodology, it is possible to analyze Kobayashi's narrative as she broke her silence about being a cancer patient.

The Three Focused Rhetorical Elements

i. The family rhetoric is used dominantly throughout the narrative. Whether directly or through implication, the family — including the husband and children — is the most prominent rhetorical device in the text. The family rhetoric serves the narrator as a source of concern about the aftermath of her illness, as a source of support, and as a source of pity — not only during her sickness but also in anticipation of her death. To amplify this, the narrator brings into the picture her own age, the ages of her children, and the image of a man left to struggle alone both during her illness and after her death.

ii. The threat rhetoric is generated passively through the depiction of breast cancer and its negative effects as a threat to the narrator's family and to her previously normal self. Threat and fear form a primary part of this narrative and could be regarded as the major driver of the entire account. This rhetoric appears early, as the narrator expresses fear about what would become of her family following her diagnosis of level 4 cancer — a diagnosis that implies the near-certainty of death. As a result of this fear, the patient initially opts to conceal the news. This fear is further compounded by the nature of her public-facing career. Later in the narrative, the patient seeks to return to a normal life, but this desire is constrained by the threat of the un-normal. The threat rhetoric therefore plays a crucial role both in connecting with the audience and in driving the real-life progression of events in the narrative.

iii. The un-normal rhetoric has been used in the narrative to form a counter-argument to what the narrator defines as normal — life without cancer. The un-normal life resulting from breast cancer has caused a shift in lifestyle away from what the narrator recognizes as ordinary. This un-normal rhetoric draws the reader into the narrative with the objective of eliciting pity, sympathy, and empathy. These emotional responses are vital to the success of the narrative, as they sustain reader engagement throughout.

Defining and Analyzing Each Rhetoric

The Family Rhetoric

The family has been given special attention in the healthcare and medicine field, often placed more prominently than the individual patient as a fundamental system in the delivery of health care. The family has been used not only as a system for the direct delivery of care but also as a major factor in the healthcare environment (Nelson & Nelson, 2014). With particular relevance to chronic diseases, the family is integrated into the care procedure in various ways in Kobayashi's narrative.

First, the narrator — who is also the cancer patient — brings in the family at the very start of the narration, as if to say: "This is all about my family, not me." Second, she paints a picture of herself as an essential part of a functioning family unit. Third, the family is introduced as a source of support and a shield against public judgment, especially concerning the effects of going public with her cancer diagnosis. Finally, the family is used to create a sense of achievement when all else appears to wither away as a result of the disease.

The first instance where the family rhetoric appears is when the narrator discusses her diagnosis. In the second sentence of the narrative, she writes, "my daughter was three, my son was only one." This serves to inform the reader that young children are involved, and given the understood gravity of a level 4 cancer diagnosis, this immediately attracts pity. It is worth noting that, although the narrator is married, there is no mention of the husband at this point — a deliberate omission, as the mention of a husband in this context might dilute the emotional impact intended.

The family rhetoric also underscores the patient's inability to perform her domestic and maternal role. The narrator states that she was hospitalized and "had to leave my children," directing the reader toward a specific deprivation that would be painful to contemplate. She further acknowledges: "I couldn't cook for them or drop them off and pick them up at the kindergarten." Despite these challenges, she affirms her love for her children, attracting favorable admiration from the reader.

The family rhetoric is also employed in the narrator's imagining of her own death, where she directly quotes what people might say after she is gone. This direct quotation lends credibility to the statement while also distancing the reader from potential critics and directing identification toward the narrator's perspective. The family rhetoric is undoubtedly effective, generating the intended emotional response and sustaining pity, sympathy, and empathy throughout the narrative.

The Threat Rhetoric

The threat rhetoric has been used extensively throughout the narrative. It is conveyed both implicitly and through explicit language designed to generate fear, such as when the narrator states that she was "scared" of having breast cancer. This rhetoric creates concern in the reader about the narrator's fate. The fear associated with the mention of death — and with a level 4 breast cancer diagnosis specifically — is especially powerful in the context of a conservative society where such a diagnosis often leads to isolation.

Shortly after breaking the news of her diagnosis, the narrator dispels any hope of recovery by stating, "I still have cancer in my body." This silences would-be comforters and drives home the reality of her situation. By creating a sense of hopelessness, the threat rhetoric generates pity. Looking ahead to her death, she imagines critics saying "poor thing…" — an exclamation that carries with it a vivid, almost physical image of shock and grief.

The threat rhetoric serves two key functions: it counters any contrary arguments by establishing the irreversibility of the situation, and it draws the reader into the narrator's perspective by soliciting pity and concern.

The Un-Normal Rhetoric

The un-normal rhetoric draws the reader to understand that, as a result of breast cancer, the narrator's life no longer resembles what is considered a normal lifestyle. By constructing a contrast between normal and un-normal, the narrator creates an ongoing battle to retain what was once ordinary. The effects of this battle include isolation, pretense, broken communication, and the public exposure of personal weakness. The narrator writes that she wanted to return to who she was before — to the normal — but the more she tried, the more she drifted into the "shadows," the un-normal. She had also sought to maintain what she defined as a normal wife and mother lifestyle, modeled on the behavior exhibited by her own mother.

The un-normal rhetoric attracts pity from the reader, as the narrator demonstrates her inability to partake in the expected roles of a human being, wife, and mother. At the same time, she is quick to note that she has already lived that normal lifestyle fully and made good on it. This acknowledgment serves two purposes: it demonstrates that she understands the difference between normal and un-normal, and it counters potential critics who might dismiss her experiences as exaggerated.