In The First Day, Robert had shown a female patient in a cast and crutches looking at a gift of flowers. The painting is set outdoors and has a bright and optimistic feeling to it. Cancer shows a male patient with a gift of flowers, but the mood is rather different. Set in a dark interior, the patient’s eyes are bandaged; he is partly undressed and his wife looks on with concern in the background. There is a touching role reversal here: the woman has given flowers to the man, and while the flowers are beautiful, the man cannot see but only smell. The bandage over the eyes is symbolic of ignorance or not knowing what direction this cancer will take.