Search results
Illness as Metaphor is a 1978 work of critical theory by Susan Sontag, in which she challenged the victim-blaming in the language that is often used to describe diseases and the people affected by them.
- Susan Sontag
- 1978
My subject is not physical illness itself but the uses of illness as a figure or metaphor. 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.
- 354KB
- 31
Jan 1, 1978 · Susan Sontag simply describes what she sees, that every illness has its own set of metaphors attached to it, given by the culture and the time. Is it self repression that leads to cancer? Is it a passionate personality that generates tuberculosis?
- (3K)
- Paperback
Sep 5, 2023 · This controversial book-length essay by Susan Sontag explores the way in which the figurative language used to describe diseases such as tuberculosis and cancer has often expressed a...
Jan 26, 1978 · Sontag argues that illness is not a metaphor and that using it as such is harmful and untrue. She examines the common metaphors of illness as war, punishment, or disease and suggests a more realistic and respectful way of thinking about it.
Almost a decade later, with the outbreak of 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.
Sep 5, 2023 · In Illness and Metaphor, Susan Sontag explores the language of disease, and specifically, the connotations it carries. People with cancer, for instance, are often blamed for causing the disease...
