Who wrote Illness as Metaphor?

Susan Sontag
Illness as Metaphor / Author

Written with a ten-year gap between them, Susan Sontag’s essays provide ample evidence for her main argument, that actual diseases might in fact sometimes be less harmful than the cultural discourse surrounding them. “The metaphors and myths, I was convinced, eliminate.”

Is cancer a metaphor?

For example, cancer is often portrayed as a battle to be fought and won, but for the patient with terminal cancer, the analogy can lead to feelings of failure or not being strong enough to win the war. Another metaphor often used is cancer as a journey.

When was Illness as Metaphor published?

1978
Illness as Metaphor / Originally published

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 …

What metaphorical purpose does tuberculosis serve?

The disease is a metaphor for isolation, which explains why the tuberculosis also emotionally scars its host.

What cancer means?

Cancer is a disease in which some of the body’s cells grow uncontrollably and spread to other parts of the body. Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells.

What is a metaphor for being sick?

To go down / fall / drop like flies. To kneel over (a disease) To pick up (= to get an illness) To sink fast (about a patient whose condition is getting worse)

What is a medical metaphor?

Doctors often use metaphors euphemistically to address high-risk conditions or procedures in a nonthreatening manner. Medical metaphors often fall into two registers—war and sports. For example, a patient is said to have “defeated” cancer, which “waged a war” on them.

Why is disease used as a metaphor?

Disease metaphors are used to find society not out of balance but repressive. They turn up regularly in Romantic rhetoric which opposes heart to head, spontaneity to reason, nature to artifice, country to city.