Prostitution Narrative

Departure
As habit persists with all things HIV/AIDS, the AIDS narrative seemingly has no place in the predetermined illness narratives landscape, comprised of restitution, chaos, and quest. I do not mean to imply that the literature ignores these stories; rather this framework fails to support the complexity of the AIDS narrative. How to Survive a Plague chronicles the AIDS narrative through a simultaneously broad and narrow lens, and the stages include a world without treatment. This includes complacency in the face of AIDS, the dramatic endeavor to gain recognition and medical treatment for AIDS, and the eerily tranquil aftermath thereof. Illness stories rely too heavily on individualism, and the AIDS narrative depends on community and support,
too intricate to define as restitution, chaos, quest or any combination of the three.

Initiation
The core of the restitution narrative rests in the idea of illness’s interruption of one’s healthy existence for a period of time, with a return to health as the expected outcome.
To satisfy the return to health of the restitution narrative, may we consider the successful implementation of ART as a return to health? I argue that “hardly” answers that question. What part of surviving the disease, struggling with medical adherence, and suffering from incessant side effects qualifies as restitution? A restitution plot “is about remaking the body in an image derived either from its own history before illness or from elsewhere” (Frank 87). Rather than health remaking or restoring the body, the AIDS sufferer experiences a remodel courtesy of HIV, the illness itself. Frank valiantly asserts that the restitution narrative involves three requirements, but one, “illness is not to be regarded as the sick person’s fault,” stands out in the context of an AIDS narrative (Frank 81). Such a requirement automatically strips the AIDS narrative of any claim to restitution. What theme permeates the AIDS narrative more than stigma and otherness? How to Survive a Plague exposes the disdain for the AIDS community through repeated political assaults by Jesse Helms as well as overall complacency by Americans. Such complacency stems from gay discrimination along with victim blaming. This suggests that those inflicted have no chance for restitution by virtue of personal choice. Regardless of causation, restitution’s description of AIDS narratives falls maddeningly short of the
truth.
A chaos narrative, a stream of consciousness rooted in the present time, seemingly represents the AIDS narrative. At the surface this seems viable. From the perspective of an outsider, “society looks at people in chaos and cannot see them as part of the social body” (Frank 113). Superficially, How to Survive a Plague supports this description as the population’s complacency isolates those in the AIDS narrative. This situation imposes the chaos story upon the AIDS narrative, but a deeper analysis divulges a lack of individual chaos. A true chaos narrative prohibits acknowledgment of past and hopes for the future, “only an incessant present with no memorable past and no future worth anticipating” (Frank 99). Though a collective effort, Act Up advocates for access to potentially life-saving medications. Individuals of Act Up envision a future of access, inclusion, and hope. The AIDS narrative acknowledges the past as well, and the eventual rise of TAG represents the application of knowledge from past mistakes. TAG remembers the shortsightedness of demands for AZT, and develops a new model for clinical trials and medication access. Chaos predicts actions independent of time, not a collective effort to generate a better future. Individually, the presence of emotional cognizance deviates from the chaos story. Interviews in the AIDS story express a realization of sadness at present conditions, where the chaos narrative stipulates the fervor of illness to veil emotion (Frank 100). The individual’s inclusion as a piece in a sophisticated machine sets the AIDS narrative apart, as this circumstance anchors the individual. Thus, the broad and narrow lens maintains the individual’s emotional awareness. On a perfunctory level, the chaos narrative provides a viable description of the AIDS narrative, yet further investigation demonstrates a kind of unstable equilibrium uncharacteristic of chaos narratives. The quest, likened to a hero’s journey, relates the plot arch of illness. An individual derives meaning from illness, “quest stories meet suffering head on; they accept illness and seek to use it” (Frank 115). However, such acceptance implies that the illness teaches the individual a lesson. AIDS imparts no such grandiose lesson. The disease kills relentlessly and indiscriminately, without regard for instruction or purpose. How to Survive a Plague repeatedly exhibits the deaths of countless individuals, but meaning remains absent as the deceased leave behind “a box of ashes and bone chips.” This story’s broad lens contends that the deaths of lovers and friends instruct the living, an idea that introduces automythology. Automythology, a popular quest, risks the glamorization of the AIDS narrative, “quest stories risk romanticizing illness. Here the antidote is restitution stories” (Frank 135). Do the living rise from the ashes of those passed, and where does that leave the departed? The impossibility of restitution in the AIDS narrative signifies the futility of the quest. No phoenix rises from the ashes in the AIDS narrative, and the inadequacy of automythology extrapolates to the shortcomings of quest’s place in AIDS documentation.

Return The restitution narrative, in all aspects, fails to capture the AIDS narrative. How to Survive a Plague closes with Peter Staley’s line, “like any war, you wonder why you came home.” Staley hints towards the desire for restitution, but he recognizes the fallacies of restitution with AIDS. Fallacy rears its head when Staley reflects on those lost along with the possibility of future loss. Chaos mandates a degree of hopelessness absent from these stories. Again, Peter Staley represents the inconsistencies of chaos when describing AIDS. Staley intonates his expectations of death, but remains conscious of his emotional state, a factor that dispels the shroud of chaos. Lastly, the rigidity of the quest’s storyline disqualifies the inclusion of AIDS stories. No AIDS documentary or literature neatly follows the dramatic plot of a quest. Though bits and pieces of the illness narrative framework characterize the AIDS experience, the complexity of AIDS as an individual, community, and global disease requires a novel approach to storytelling. Would not a freedom narrative of the intersection of life and disease allow for a proper communication of the true AIDS experience?