Illness as Metaphor (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Susan Sontag
- First Published: 1978
- Type of Work: Essay
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, Sociology
- Subjects: Literature, Social issues, Art or artists, Cancer, Punishment, Death or dying, Ethics, Sick persons, Medicine, Terminal illness or terminally ill, Diseases, Romanticism, Tuberculosis, Patients
Sontag wrote this polemical book in the wake of her own arduous recovery from breast cancer. Although she nowhere mentions her own illness in the book, her own experience with a life-threatening disease (as she admitted in interviews) was the inspiration for her work.
Sontag's main concern is to refute the idea that there are psychological causes of disease. To her, disease is a physical problem that is best treated by securing the best possible medical diagnosis and therapy. She is particularly disturbed by the idea that cancer, for example, can be induced through the...
[The entire page is 811 words long]
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