Illness as Metaphor"In this penetrating analysis of the social attitudes toward various major illnesses - chiefly tuberculosis, the scourge of the 19th century, and cancer, the terror of our own - Susan Sontag demonstrates that "illness is not a metaphor" and shows why "the healthiest way of being ill is one purified of metaphoric thinking." Once tuberculosis was identified as a bacterial infection, it ceased to be a symbol of a romantic fading away or of a sensitive or artistic temperament, and it could be treated and cured. Similarly, we must today cease to think of cancer as a mark of doom, a punishment or a sign of a repressed personality, and recognize it for what it is: one disease among many and often receptive to treatment." -- from back cover. |
Common terms and phrases
afflicted Armance artist's disease attack become body body's called cancer cells cancer metaphor cancer patients cancer-prone character chemotherapy cholera clichés consumption contrast coughs cure D. H. Lawrence describe desire disease metaphors disease thought disease's disorder doctors Dombey and Son dread dying emotional energy evil fantasies about TB fatal feelings fiction four humours gangrene Groddeck homo economicus illness Illness as Metaphor imagery insanity John Middleton Murry Keats Les Misérables Little Eva lungs Magic Mountain Max Brod melancholy mental meta modern diseases modern idea moral mysterious myth of TB nineteenth century notion novel one's organ passion person phors physician plague political pollution psychological punishment punitive repression resignation rhetoric romantic sensitive sexual sick society someone spiritual Stalinism SUSAN SONTAG symptoms syphilis TB and cancer TB is understood TB was thought theory thinking tion treated treatment Trotsky tubercle tuberculosis tumor turn vitality Wilhelm Reich young