The Impact and Versatility of Metaphor

As the title of “Illness as Metaphor” implies, Susan Sontag’s primary theme is that the language we use to describe illness has resulted in an unfair stigmatization of those suffering from disease. She implies that the language used to describe illness can have an immense impact both on our culture and on the experiences of sufferers. She utilizes a variety of evidence to substantiate this claim that the way we describe illness – even the very specific language we use to refer to diseases – has lasting impacts.

First, she cites from the letters and diaries of individuals who were actually diagnosed with the disease and demonstrates how stigma emerges in their perceptions of themselves. For example, the eighteenth-century British poet Lord Byron wrote in a private letter that he wanted to contract tuberculosis because he would be more interesting to women. This shocking...