Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors

An eye opening book about how certain illnesses (TB and cancer are her two examples) are used as metaphors–either to characterize the type of person who has the illness or to indicate something is wrong in a society. In her introduction, Sontag says, “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.” Proceeding from this point, the book is a sad journey through the old attitudes towards tuberculosis and the people who had the misfortune to have it–and an infuriating catalog of the ways cancer patients were still being blamed for their illness in 1975. Much has changed in cancer treatment since this book was published, but other illnesses are equally baffling and just as prone to being used as metaphors now. Also, positive thinking is now pushed on all who are ill no matter what their disease, so the book does not come across as outdated.

The book also prompted me to notice the ways that I use my own ailments as metaphors for my character, and to understand that, while I might no longer beat myself up for having digestive problems, there might also be a loss in letting go of the symbolic and metaphoric thinking that I use to try to understand them.

Very rich book, well worth reading and pondering