Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
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In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor, a classic work described by Newsweek as "one of the most liberating books of its time." A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is--just a disease. Cancer, she argues, is not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment and, it is highly curable, if good treatment is followed. Almost a decade later, with the outbreak of a new, stigmatized disease replete with mystifications and punitive metaphors, Sontag wrote a sequel to Illness as Metaphor, extending the argument of the earlier book to the AIDS pandemic. These two essays now published together, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, have been translated into many languages and continue to have an enormous influence on the thinking of medical professionals and, above all, on the lives of many thousands of patients and caregivers.
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An eye opening book about how certain illnesses (TB and cancer are her two examples) are used as metaphors–either to characterize the type of person who has the illness or to indicate something is wrong in a society. In her introduction, Sontag says, “My point is that illness is not a metaphor, and that the most truthful way of regarding illness–and the healthiest way of being ill–is one most purified of, most resistant to, metaphoric thinking.” Proceeding from this point, the book is a sad journey through the old attitudes towards tuberculosis and the people who had the misfortune to have it–and an infuriating catalog of the ways cancer patients were still being blamed for their illness in 1975. Much has changed in cancer treatment since this book was published, but other illnesses are equally baffling and just as prone to being used as metaphors now. Also, positive thinking is now pushed on all who are ill no matter what their disease, so the book does not come across as outdated.
The book also prompted me to notice the ways that I use my own ailments as metaphors for my character, and to understand that, while I might no longer beat myself up for having digestive problems, there might also be a loss in letting go of the symbolic and metaphoric thinking that I use to try to understand them.
Very rich book, well worth reading and pondering
