John Updike's At War With My Skin

In reading John Updike's At War with My Skin, I was very intrigued by the story all the way through. The story is a personal reflection on Updike's experiences with psoriasis, a skin condition that occurs in people when they are not exposed to enough sunlight. The structure of this story was interesting because it was a biogrophy of sorts but it felt very different because I was not certain that it was actually Unpdike who the story was about. I thought that the writing was done extremely well and he had many lines that stuck out in my mind. As Updike wrote about dealing with psoriasis and adjusting his life to conceal it, we learned a lot about the importance of image to him and others with the disease. The line about being forced to a mirror was very powerful becuase it showed how consumed by his image Updike actually was. He actually wrote this line when he mentioned that he passed the disease onto his daughter which was devastating to him. I thought that the story he told about getting discharged from the army was interesting because like he said, a skin disease would not stop him from killing someone. But I found the reaction by his mother to be more surprising because she was actually upset that he could not be in the army because she felt at fault.
If anything, this story is a great example of the stress that diseases put on the family life. The pressure that Updike talked about with getting married and having kids early becuase he did not want to miss his chance. It was very powerful to read about how consumed one could be by a disease that is not even fatal, just one that simply effects ones complexion.