Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Susan Sontag

Quote by Susan Sontag

“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance. First, the subjects of deepest dread (corruption, decay, pollution, anomie, weakness) are identified with the disease. The disease itself becomes a metaphor. Then, in the name of the disease (that is, using it as a metaphor), that horror is imposed on other things. The disease becomes adjectival. Something is said to be disease-like, meaning that it is disgusting or ugly.”

Quote by Susan Sontag

Book:Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
Create image

Work

Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors

This book consists of two essays that delve into the ways in which metaphors are employed to comprehend and discuss illness. The first essay, 'Illness as Metaphor,' examines the metaphorical interpretations of various diseases. The second essay, 'AIDS and Its Metaphors,' specifically addresses the metaphorical portrayal of AIDS. Both essays offer critical insights into the role of metaphors in shaping public perception and understanding of medical conditions. more

Author

Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag was an American writer, critic, and photographer. Known for her unique literary style and profound thinking, her work spans various fields including literature, art, and politics. Born on January 16, 1933, she passed away on December 28, 2004. more

You May Also Like

“If we lived close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons as metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era does not come from agriculture - it comes from manufacturing. We do not believe that we 'grow' our lives - we believe that we 'make' them. Just listen to how we use the word in everyday speech: we make time, make friends, make meaning, make money, make a living, make love.”

LifeRealityMetaphorGrowMake
Book:Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
Create image

“It was a high ceilinged room with tall, large-panes windows. Apart from the doorway was the desk where book had been checked out in days when books were still being checked out. He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet's intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.”

DeathBooksEmptyLibraryMetaphorAbandonedDeadDecayApocalypseZombies
Book:I Am Legend
Create image

“Holly steps back. Being warned about a ghost and seeing him are not the same. 'What did they do to you?' Some of the Anchorites laugh. Hugo looks back at his long-ago lover. 'They'-he looks about the Chapel-'cured me. They cured me of a terrible wasting disease called mortality. There's a lot of it about. The young hold out for a time, but eventually even the hardiest patient gets reduced to a desiccated embryo, a Strudlebug...a veined, scrawny, dribbling...bone clock, whose face betrays how very, very little time they have left.”

LifeDeathTimeSpeechMetaphorImmortalityMortalityClimaxTitle
Author:David Mitchell
Create image

“The age-old, seemingly inexorable process whereby diseases acquire meanings (by coming to stand for the deepest fears) and inflict stigma is always worth challenging, and it does seem to have more limited credibility in the modern world, among people willing to be modern - the process is under surveillance now. With this illness, one that elicits so much guilt and shame, the effort to detach it from these meanings, these metaphors, seems particularly liberating, even consoling. But the metaphors cannot be distanced just by abstaining from them. They have to be exposed, criticized, belabored, used up.”

DiseaseMetaphorAidsStigma
Book:Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
Create image