Illness as Metaphor presents itself as an extended application of the ideas in “Against Interpretation,” exposing and disposing of criticism’s “shadow world of ‘meanings’” to reveal the material phenomena at the root of so much fevered glossing. Customers who bought this item also bought. Please try again. In October of 1977, Susan Sontag delivered one of the institute’s five James Lectures for that year. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in. Sontag wrote that multiple studies found a link between depression and cancer, which she argued was just a sign of the times and not a reason for the disease, since in previous times physicians found that cancer patients suffered from hyperactivity and hypersensitivity, which were signs of their times. Mental Illness Is No Metaphor: Five Uneasy Pieces. It inspired a poem for my final portfolio, and I got a distinction on that and an overall distinction for the MA, so I am well pleased! Tuberculosis and cancer serve as her two central examples of the human tendency to use metaphoric thinking about illness. Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. Unable to add item to List. Susan Sontag’s 1978 book Illness As Metapho r is an eighty-seven-page work of critical theory exploring the language we use to describe disease and its connotations. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. Her book is not about illness, but about the use of illness as a figure or metaphor. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. [2], Sontag then made the comparison between the metaphors used to describe tuberculosis and cancer, with cancer being seen in the 1970s as a disease that afflicted people who lacked passion and sensuality, and those who repressed their feelings. Commentary. Anti-democrats used it … Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. The brief is too brief to be just. Punitive notions of disease have a long history, and such notions are particularly active with cancer. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Her final argument was that metaphors are not useful for patients, since metaphors make patients feel as if their illness was due to their feelings, rather than lack of effective treatment. [5] Others have taken her idea further, showing not that there is a real "cancer" behind the metaphors, but that all we have is metaphor—even in science—to understand the behavior of a disease that remains mysterious. [6], The work was originally published as three long essays in the New York Review of Books. In novels and political discourse, the use of illness as metaphor is sometimes ongoing and thematic, with complicated literary or rhetorical dimensions. Illness is not an event; it is a condition. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Dr Pies is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Lecturer on Bioethics and Humanities, SUNY Upstate Medical University; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; and Editor in Chief Emeritus of Psychiatric Times (2007-2010). Disease as Political Metaphor. Illness as Metaphor, Chapter 7 Cancer is generally thought an inappropriate disease for a romantic character, in contrast to tuberculosis, perhaps because unromantic depression has supplanted the romantic notion of melancholy. Tuberculosis was even seen as a sign of punishment by some religions, such as Christianity, leading the afflicted to believe that they deserved their ailment. itself but the uses of illness as a figure or metaphor. “Metaphor is a way of thought long before a way of language” notes … Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. There is the “fight” or “crusade” against cancer; cancer is the “killer” disease; people who have cancer are “cancer victims.”. Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2017. Illness as Metaphor By Lou Agosta on March 31, 2020. In the 19th century, tuberculosis was considered a disease of passion, of "inward burning," of the "consumption" of life force. 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