Illness and Disability, Susan Sontag, and the Need for Embodied Language

Dialog should guide any social interventions, so that relevant services are provided to individuals or communities. There is one group, however, where dialog has been particularly scarce. Although this group encompasses a wide range of issues, the disabled community has been especially marginalized and the voice of these persons is seldom heard. Susan Sontag's acclaimed book, Illness as Metaphor, should resonate with these persons. An initial reading tends to convey the idea that she wants to humanize medicine by enabling ill persons to define their conditions. After all, she deals with language and the storylines persons weave about themselves, their bodies, and their relationships. Due to this orientation, she is thought to have demystified illness. Although Sontag seems to soften the stark approach adopted regularly by medical professionals, she remains committed to the medical model and thus has little to say that is inspiring to the ill and disabled. This manuscript argues that metaphor is a powerful rhetorical device for communicating disease and disability that should be used by the community.