Abstract

In Autopsy, second episode of the second season, House has to deal with inexplicable hallucinations in the middle of the cancer remission in a little girl of 9. What is interesting is that the chapter can be analyzed from the plot of Puccini’s opera, Turandot. The script itself proposes this parallel when it explicitly includes the aria Nessun dorma, which is key to both, the opera story-line and the solving of the medical enigma. It is one of the sharpest chapters of the series, both from the point of view of diagnostic complexity as from the way in which the solution to the problem is arrived at. This work stems from the treatment of the medical aesthetic matters of the case, to later delve into the subjective dimension. In this way an analytical supplement is proposed which provides a hypothesis regarding the spectre of castration, which is essential in order to understand and intervene in the complex relationship between the little girl and her mother.

Key words: Cancer | Opera | Bioethics | castration