Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
Sontag, Susan | Penguin Group USA
21,250원 | 20021205 | 9780141187129
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.
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.
When diagnosed with breast cancer Susan Sontag discovered the extent to which we have developed a mythology to cope with disease, which can often distort the truth about illness and isolate the patient. In Illness as Metaphor she strips away the myths and presents the true significance of disease as it has affected cultures throughout the centuries. AIDS and its Metaphors extends her critique to examine the metaphors surrounding AIDS and to expose the truth, free of guilt, shame and fear.
