Illness As Metaphor

16.50

As a cancer patient in the 1970s, Susan Sontag wrote ‘Illness as a Metaphor’ to show how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of the patients. The second essay extends the argument to the AIDS pandemic.

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Description

Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor in 1978, while suffering from breast cancer herself. In her study she reveals that the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of the patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is – a disease; not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment, and highly curable, if good treatment is found early enough. Almost a decade later, with the outbreak of a new, stigmatized disease replete with mystifications and punitive metaphors, Sontag wrote Aids and Its Metaphors, extending the argument of the earlier book to the AIDS pandemic.

Additional information

Weight 0.14 kg
Dimensions 20.4 × 12.8 × 1.8 cm
Book_author

Sontag, Susan

Publisher

Penguin Classics

Imprint

Penguin Classics

Cover

Paperback

Pages

180

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

616.9792001 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

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