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Susan sontag illness metaphor essay
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Susan sontag illness as metaphor essay
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In Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors, Susan Sontag emphasizes the negative connotations associated with the uses of figurative language, specifically metaphoric terms, with diseases that have no known cause or multiple causes. Sontag constantly reminds her audience that her goal has always been “to calm the imagination, not to incite it… to persuade terrified people who were ill to consult doctors…who would give them proper case. To regard cancer as if it were just a disease…not a curse, not a punishment, not an embarrassment. Without ‘meaning’” (102). Those within the medical community, as well as those who are not, offer metaphors to provide a conceptual understanding of diseases to people who are unfamiliar with the causes or symptoms. However, when those who are not diagnosed with the illness use the metaphors, it causes those coping with it to feel embarrassed or guilty. Focusing on the significance or meaning of a disease draws both medical professionals and the publics’ eye away from the disease itself and the major health risks it poses. Sontag’s warning against the exaggerated use of metaphors is …show more content…
People with anorexia, who are usually adolescent, drop significantly below normal weight. Despite this fact, they feel fat, fear being fat, continue to obsess over losing weight and sometimes exercise excessively (Meyers). Anorexia nervosa can be associated with perfectionism, pleasing others, wanting attention, emotional insecurity, stressful situations, and many other underlying causes (Meyers). Anorexia is particularly threatening to physical health because so many patients are prone to relapse. Therefore, early identification and treatment of anorexia nervosa is essential to take advantage of patients’ chances for recovery (Meyers). In order for this identification to take place, the public must be properly informed about anorexia in a captivating, yet accurate
“The Terrifying Normalcy of AIDS” is an essay written by Stephen Jay Gould, in which he talks about a dangerous disease that is spreading and becoming an issue to mankind, and that it is more of a mechanism than an irregular occurrence which I agree with. Stephen Jay Gould also shares his thoughts on our capabilities with the utilization of technology are boundless; especially when it comes to these types of ailments that threaten our kind, which is something I do not side with. Also, Stephen Jay Gould goes on to say that most people are misinformed about the disease and do not fully understand it.
Almost doctors and physicians in the world have worked at a hospital, so they must know many patients’ circumstances. They have to do many medical treatments when the patients come to the emergency room. It looks like horror films with many torture scenes, and the patients have to pay for their pains. The doctors have to give the decisions for every circumstance, so they are very stressful. They just want to die instead of suffering those medical treatments. In that time, the patients’ family just believes in the doctors and tells them to do whatever they can, but the doctors just do something that 's possible. Almost patients have died after that expensive medical treatments, but the doctors still do those medical procedures. That doctors did not have enough confidence to tell the truth to the patients’ families. Other doctors have more confidence, so they explain the health condition to the patients’ families. One time, the author could not save his patient, and the patient had found another doctor to help her. That doctor decided to cut her legs, but the patient still died in fourteen days
(The Open University, 2015b). Looking at the language used in mental health and how this can change and shape people’s perspectives, for instance, the term ‘patient’ indicates that a person is ill. Once again this is taking on a biomedical approach, and the biomedical perspective are a result of physical or chemical malfunction in the brain (The Open University, 2015c) There are debates over the language used within mental health on how to refer to people, moving towards the terms ‘service user’ or ‘client’ which takes the focus away from an illness and more of a service being given and
This internal conflict is a result of the mistakes a physician makes, and the ability to move on from it is regarded as almost unreachable. For example, in the essay, “When Doctors Make Mistakes”, Gawande is standing over his patient Louise Williams, viewing her “lips blue, her throat swollen, bloody, and suddenly closed passage” (73). The imagery of the patient’s lifeless body gives a larger meaning to the doctor’s daily preoccupations. Gawande’s use of morbid language helps the reader identify that death is, unfortunately, a facet of a physician’s career. However, Gawande does not leave the reader to ponder of what emotions went through him after witnessing the loss of his patient. He writes, “Perhaps a backup suction device should always be at hand, and better light more easily available. Perhaps the institutions could have trained me better for such crises” (“When Doctors Make Mistakes” 73). The repetition of “perhaps” only epitomizes the inability to move on from making a mistake. However, this repetitive language also demonstrates the ends a doctor will meet to save a patient’s life (73). Therefore, it is not the doctor, but medicine itself that can be seen as the gateway from life to death or vice versa. Although the limitations of medicine can allow for the death of a patient to occur, a doctor will still experience emotional turmoil after losing someone he was trying to
Anorexia Nervosa may be described directly as an eating disease classified by a deficit in weight, not being able to maintain weight appropriate for one’s height. Anorexia means loss of appetite while Anorexia Nervosa means a lack of appetite from nervous causes. Before the 1970s, most people never heard of Anorexia Nervosa. It was identified and named in the 1870s, before then people lived with this mental illness, not knowing what it was, or that they were even sick. It is a mental disorder, which distorts an individual’s perception of how they look. Looking in the mirror, they may see someone overweight
Paul Monette in his autobiography, “Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir” wants to make the younger generation aware of all the mistakes, suffering and deaths his generation went through fighting with AIDS, as he is convinced that it might help the new generation survive. He wrote his life story in 1988, soon after he was diagnosed with HIV and two years after his partner and close friend Roger Horwitz died of AIDS.
Out of all mental illnesses found throughout the world, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate. Anorexia nervosa is one of the more common eating disorders found in society, along with bulimia nervosa. Despite having many definitions, anorexia nervosa is simply defined as the refusal to maintain a normal body weight (Michel, 2003). Anorexia nervosa is derived from two Latin words meaning “nervous inability to eat” (Frey, 2002). Although anorexics, those suffering from anorexia, have this “nervous inability to eat,” it does not mean that they do not have an appetite—anorexics literally starve themselves. They feel that they cannot trust or believe their perceptions of hunger and satiation (Abraham, 2008). Anorexics lose at least 15 percent of normal weight for height (Michel, 2003). This amount of weight loss is significant enough to cause malnutrition with impairment of normal bodily functions and rational thinking (Lucas, 2004). Anorexics have an unrealistic view of their bodies—they believe that they are overweight, even if the mirror and friends or family say otherwise. They often weigh themselves because they possess an irrational fear of gaining weight or becoming obese (Abraham, 2008). Many anorexics derive their own self-esteem and self-worth from body weight, size, and shape (“Body Image and Disordered Eating,” 2000). Obsession with becoming increasingly thinner and limiting food intake compromises the health of individuals suffering from anorexia. No matter the amount of weight they lose or how much their health is in jeopardy, anorexics will never be satisfied with their body and will continue to lose more weight.
As defined by the National Eating Disorders Association, “Anorexia Nervosa is a serious, potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.” (NEDA). The term “Anorexia Nervosa” literally means “neurotic loss of appetite”, and could be more generally defined as the result of a prolonged self-starvation and an unhealthy relationship regarding food and self-image. It is characterized by “resistance to maintaining body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height”, “intense fear of weight gain or being “fat”, even though underweight”, “disturbance in the experience of body weight or shape, undue influence of weight or shape on self-evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of low body weight”, and “loss of menstrual periods in girls and women post-puberty.”(NEDA) Among women on a range of 15 to 24 years old, AN has been proved to have 12 times the annual mortality rate of all death causes, and from premature deaths of anorexic patients, 1 in every 5 is caused by suicide, which gives a rise of 20% for suicide probability. (EDV)
Anorexia nervosa is a life threatening eating disorder defined by a refusal to maintain fifteen percent of a normal body weight through self-starvation (NAMI 1). Ninety-five percent of anorexics are women between the ages of twelve and eighteen, however, “…in the past twenty years, this disorder has become a growing threat to high school and college students”(Maloney and Kranz 60). Anorexia produces a multitude of symptoms, and if not treated, anorexia can lead to permanent physical damage or death.
Morace, Robert A. “Interpreter of Maladies: Stories.” Magill’s Literary Annual 2000 1999: 198. Literary Reference Center. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. .
The h’orderves include a pleasant headache, followed by a main dish about fever heat, finished off with a nice plate of muscle fatigue for dessert; that’s illness in a nutshell. Illness is an inevitable occurrence in life, and in the excerpt of Susan Sontag’s book, Illness as Metaphor, she makes this very apparent. Oftentimes, people euphemize the concept of illness, and Sontag is completely against this. Throughout the excerpt, she establishes her perspective of illness through the application of metaphor and paradox.
Due to these unrealistic images and ideals during this impressionable developmental stage, it is not surprising that adolescent girls make up 95% of individuals who suffer from eating disorders (ANAD, 2013). Clearly, media images and messages greatly contribute to the development of eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa (Edwards, 2008, Maclagan, 1998). Dokter describes an eating disorder as, “a reflection of a person’s degree of unhappiness with themselves” (1995, p.208). Mitchell adds that eating disorders are a “disturbance of delusional proportions in the body image and body concept” (Brooke,2008,p.15). Eating disorders include: anorexia nervosa, bulimia, binge eating, and other non-specified eating disorders. It is crucial for individuals with eating disorders to seek treatment due to the fact that it is life threatening. Of all mental disorders, eating disorders bear the highest mortality rates (ANAD,2013).
Today, America is plagued with eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Compulsive Eating Disorders. Each has its own characteristics that distinguish the illness yet there are some similarities that they also share. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, as with most mental illnesses, eating disorders are not caused by just one factor but by a combination of behavioral, biological, emotional, psychological, interpersonal and social factors. Shockingly, they also report that in the United States, there are as many as 10 million females and 1 million males that are battling with eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. Additionally, another 25 million are struggling with binge eating disorders (www.NationalEatingDisorders.org). Typically, psychological factors such as depression and low self-esteem contribute to eating disorders...
particularly in the Hamlet. In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare uses disease imagery to describe the leadership of Denmark, and how. corruption has infected the kingdom. Similarly, Shakespeare compares how an untreated infection can spread to the ones least expected to be. infected.
As a whole, article one is rich with lexical items that belong to the medical lexical field, such as cold, flu, Panadol, tablets, sick, suffer, diseases, chicken pox, depression, doctor, coughs, headache etc. The extensive use of these terms throughout the article was a necessity since the main topic is about a medical condition.