Illness as Metaphor

"Illness as Metaphor" (1978) is an essay by Susan Sontag in which she attempts to demystify cancer, exposing the myths and metaphors surrounding this disease. The theme of the work is not physical pain itself, but the use of illness as a figure of speech. Sontag argues that cancer is neither a curse nor a punishment; it is simply a disease (which can be cured). Ten years later, with the outbreak of a new stigmatized disease, rife with mystifications and punitive metaphors, a sequel to "Illness..." was published — "AIDS and Its Metaphors" (1989) — an essay that expands the field of study to the AIDS pandemic. This book presents both works, in which Sontag shows that "illness is not a metaphor and that the most honest approach to illness, as well as the most 'healthy' way to be ill, is to try to completely reject metaphorical thinking."