Differential Perceptions of the Hospitalized Patient*

“So we struggle with the mystery to grasp an approximation of the meaning, within ourselves and among ourselves, of what we perceive and do. It is a hopeless struggle … because the meaning we make of something, our act of making its meaning, is itself part of its meaning and remains to be construed.” (Rossman, 1979, p. 260)

“I remember on one occasion wanting the word for Table. There were five or six boys standing around, and tapping the table with my forefinger, I asked “What is this?” One boy said it was dodela, another that it was an etanda, a third stated that it was bokali, a fourth that it was elamba, and the fifth said it was meza … (W)e … congratulated ourselves that we were working among a people who possessed so rich a language that they had five words for one article … (Later it was discovered that) one lad had thought we wanted the word for tapping, another understood we were seeking the word for the material of which the table was made; another had an idea that we required the word for hardness; another thought we wished for a name for that which covered the table; and the last, not being able, perhaps, to think of anything else gave us the word meza, table—the very word we were seeking.” (Weeks, 1913, p. 51)

The problem of opposing meanings within a literary text is often resolved by the notion of points of view. For example, the author/