Battling Breast Cancer
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5777768 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nancy K Bristow (University of Puget Sound, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 114-123 |
| Publication date | 2002-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Reviews in American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0048-7511 • E-ISSN: 1080-6628 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/rah.2002.0005 |
| PMID | 11949674 |
| OpenAlex | W2071672367 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 3 |
In 1978 the writer Susan Sontag published her now famous essay, Illness as Metaphor, detailing, she explained, "not what it is really like to emigrate to the kingdom of the ill and live there, but" rather "the punitive or sentimental fantasies concocted about that situation," "not physical illness itself but the uses of illness as a figure or metaphor." Maintaining that the tendency to rely on metaphors to discuss illness and disease was widespread in American culture, Sontag hoped through her essay to provide both "an elucidation of those metaphors, and a liberation from them." Herself a cancer patient, Sontag argued for the abandonment of metaphors in relation to disease and illness. "My point," she declared, "is that illness is not a metaphor, and that the most truthful way of regarding illness--and the healthiest way of being ill--is one most purified of, most resistant to, metaphoric thinking." Having identified Americans' attachment to metaphor in their consideration of disease, Sontag urged them to abandon this approach, citing the damage such metaphors caused in the experiences of cancer patients. 1
Abandonment (legal · Punitive damages · BRCA gene mutations in cancer · Empathy and Medical Education
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2015 (11) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |