Illness as Metaphor¶
Sontag, S. (1978). Illness as Metaphor. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Cited by¶
2 citations across 2 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Mechanisms¶
- Discourse Analysis
- Susan Sontag made exactly this observation about military metaphors of illness
This sourceCritiques the military language used to describe illness, especially cancer, in Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor.
- Susan Sontag made exactly this observation about military metaphors of illness
- Non-Literality Disclaimer
- … not 'try harder' when you are 'strong,' and recovering from an illness is not a matter of willpower or courage." The army image survives — readers keep the intuition that the body actively defends itself — but the disclaimer blocks the corrosive inference that patients who worsen simply "didn't fight hard enough."*
This sourceIt is a standing caution that a vivid medical figure needs its literal inference explicitly disowned, which is exactly what this mechanism does.
- … not 'try harder' when you are 'strong,' and recovering from an illness is not a matter of willpower or courage." The army image survives — readers keep the intuition that the body actively defends itself — but the disclaimer blocks the corrosive inference that patients who worsen simply "didn't fight hard enough."*
Verification¶
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