This essay explores how breast cancer and mastectomy are Wayed in twentieth-century North American literature. The purpose in doing so is to examine our understandings of how women In contemporary North American culture may experience this potentially fatal disease and disfigurement-understandings that often are narrowly prescribed by the abstract, universalizing language of medicine. The essay is divided into four sections based on the readings of the selected literature: denial and fear; sadness and pain; shame through others' eyes; and transcendence.