Scripts of Sickness: A Narrative Inquiry into Medical Commercials in Kerala through Arthur Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller

Abstract

The growth of healthcare in Kerala, particularly since the 1980s, has been characterised by the increasing dominance of private hospitals, coinciding with a decline in government healthcare spending. This shift was driven by several socio-economic factors, including rising literacy rates, higher income levels, and lifestyle changes, which collectively created a growing demand for more advanced medical services. The private sector, in response to this demand, expanded rapidly, offering a wide range of services that appealed to both local and international patients. This expansion was accompanied by strategic marketing with healthcare services being promoted through various channels, including print media, television and digital platforms. The consumption of these services has also evolved, with an increasing reliance on private healthcare, especially in urban and semi-urban areas, as patients seek quicker, higher-quality care and more personalised treatment options. This paper focuses on thematic analysis based on the framework proposed by Arthur Frank in his work The Wounded Storyteller to explore how healthcare advertisements construct meaning. By analysing the narrative structure of the advertisements, we can identify the stories they tell, such as promises of recovery and the idealisation of medical intervention. These narratives often play on emotions like fear and hope, using plot structures, characters to engage viewers. Decoding of the visual and linguistic symbols in these advertisements is employed, such as the use of doctors in white coats and smiling patients, which promote ideologies of trust in modern medicine. It further reveals how medical language, including technical jargon and references to cutting-edge technology, serves to establish authority and power within the medical field, often commodifying healthcare. Metaphors of healing, such as ‘restoration’ and ‘battle’, are also examined, drawing connections between the language of ads and traditional literary tropes that shape our understanding of illness and recovery.