Ebook: AIDS and its METAPHORS 1989

Overview: Illness as Metaphor was a response to Sontag’s experiences as a cancer patient, as she noticed that the cultural myths surrounding cancer negatively impacted her as a patient. She finds that, a decade later, cancer is no longer swathed in secrecy and shame, but has been replaced by AIDS as the disease most demonized by society. She finds that the metaphors that we associate with disease contribute not only to stigmatizing the disease, but also stigmatizing those who are ill. She believes that the distractions of metaphors and myths ultimately cause more fatalities from this disease.