Illness and metaphor: translating personal experience between the autobiographical and the political

Abstract

In 2019 Anne Boyer publishes The Undying, a memoir of the experience as breast cancer patient. Her depiction of illness is dense of metaphors: the images employed span from the domain of biology to the textual one. This contribution intends to discuss metaphors in relation to autobiographical writing of illness in two complementary directions. On the one hand, metaphors are forms of re-writing, translating subjective and emotional narratives into cultural objects. In this framework, language functions as a tool for translation in the intricacy of possible meanings, able to bridge private experience and public sharing. On
the other hand, the gap that subsists between metaphorical representation of individual experiences and collective space of discussion can lead to harmful consequences in socio-political terms. This is the position defended by Susan Sontag, who covers in two essays three diseases (tuberculosis, cancer and HIV/AIDS) over two centuries and the harmful impact metaphorical discourse has brought to both patients and civil society. This paper aims to question both the interconnectedness of autobiographical memory, metaphors and illness as well as the implications of this both subjective and social phenomenon.
Theoretical discussion is followed by a close analysis to the aforementioned texts by Boyer and Sontag.