Metaphor in Illness Writing: Fight and Battle Reused

By Anita Wohlmann

Metaphor in Illness Writing argues that even when a metaphor appears problematic and limiting, it need not be dropped or dismissed. Metaphors are not inherently harmful or beneficial; instead, they can be used in unexpected and creative ways. This book analyses the illness writing of contemporary North American writers who reimagine and reappropriate the supposedly harmful metaphor 'illness is a fight' and shows how Susan Sontag, Audre Lorde, Anatole Broyard, David Foster Wallace and other writers turn the fight metaphor into a space of agency, resistance, self-knowledge and aesthetic pleasure. It joins a conversation in Medical Humanities about alternatives to the predominance of narrative and responds to the call for more metaphor literacy and metaphor competence.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1399500864
• ISBN13: 9781399500869
• Release Date: September 2022
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"