Abnormal Bodies and Fractured Identities: Illness in Pilar Dughi’s Short Story “¿Alguna novedad?”

Abstract

This article analyzes how the experience of illness transforms the lives of the characters in Pilar Dughi’s short story “¿Alguna novedad?”, included in her final book La horda primitiva (2008). In this work, Dughi gathers stories that depict the breakdown of family bonds, loneliness, lack of communication, isolation, and suffering, particularly among elderly individuals. Drawing on her dual role as both writer and psychiatrist, she offers a sharp perspective on human vulnerability. The study focuses on how the onset of illness, together with the prolonged wait for a diagnosis that never arrives, generate uncertainty and pain. At the same time, it destabilizes notions such as identity, humanity, and normality within a performance-oriented society that excludes dysfunctional bodies. To address this issue, a narrative analysis is proposed, articulated with key concepts from the phenomenology of illness, such as the lived body and crisis of identity. The study concludes that this approach makes it possible to recognize the patient as an epistemic subject whose lived experience should be integrated into medical knowledge. Narrative, understood as both an aesthetic and cognitive device, reveals dimensions often overlooked by the clinical gaze: the suffering body, waiting, silence, and fragility. In this regard, Dughi’s story not only denounces the dehumanization of the healthcare system, but also underscores the urgency of a more ethical, empathetic and patient-centered medicine.