In pairs, I would like you summarize the main claim of AIDS and Its Metaphors in your own words. What do you think its central argument is? Then review one section of this essay and summarize its main point. Which (brief) passage do you think conveys this point? Last, I’d like you to explain how this section of the essay relates to the claim of the entire essay.
Here are the pairs I would like you to work in and the section I’d like you to focus on:
Section 1 (pp. 93-104): Zach Welch & Emily Major; Section 2 (pp. 104-112): Jenn Vernick & Cayla Jewett; Section 3 (112-125): Matt Ritz & Kelsey Jensen; Section 4 (125-131): Jenna Pettinger & Leah Goldsher; Section 5 (pp. 132-148): Kathryn Palma & Kelly Goheen; Section 6 (pp. 148-159): Anya Morin & Stephanie Franquemont; Section 7 (pp. 159-168): Sean McNiff & MaryKate DeGraw.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Zach Welch & Emily Major
ReplyDeleteSontag claims that over the past few decades, a meaningful stigma has been built around the AIDS affliction in America that is equally, if not more, harmful than that which surrounded cancer. Her central argument is that these metaphors have become increasingly burdensome and painful in present-day America. Her first section is built around the metaphors that relate to disease and she continually invokes her essay on cancer to bolster her argument. She is also quick to cite the military metaphor, what she sees as a tendency to relate the struggle with HIV/AIDS to a military engagement, as some sort of crisis to be eliminated violently on a battlefield. The passage most indicative of her position on this matter is, "Military metaphors contribute to the stigmatizing of certain illnesses and, by extension, of those who are ill. Sontag feels this metaphor stigmatizes the illness as something that requires a “violent,” “state-sponsored” reaction that overdramatizes the whole ordeal. She feels that disease is not an absolute, unbeatable force, but simply a condition without connotation.
The main point of this section was how disease, particularly AIDS was punishment for an immoral life style. People who contracted HIV/AIDS from sharing needles during intravenous drug use were seen as committing, "A kind of inadvertent suicide." Because AIDS/HIV was viewed as punishment, people were hesitant or unwilling to seek treatment for fear of being exposed. In a sharp contrast to cancer where the diagnosis was kept a secret from the patient, AIDS/HIV was kept a secret from the family.
ReplyDeleteThis section fits into her main point that the myths and metaphors about disease are detrimental to the patient because it makes people feel responsible for their disease. Because patients believe their morality is the cause of the disease, they feel their is no scientific cure. Due to mystery surrounding the disease myths are created which serve to misinform society to the true nature of the illness. Without accurate knowledge disease patients turn to alternative medicine for a cure.
The main claim of this essay is that metaphors associated with illnesses create bad connotations and taboos.
ReplyDeleteIn section two it is stated that AIDS has a dual metaphor. Like syphilis, it is said that the transmission of the disease is a pollution. The sections then deviates from this idea and goes into the science of how the AIDS virus invades the body. Sontag compares the similarities of the invasion of both cancer and AIDS. This sections concludes with the idea that cancer used to be viewed as a death sentence, but the emergence of AIDS now has that role in society -- guaranteed death.
Sontag writes, "What makes the viral assault so terrifying is that contamination, and therefore vulnerability, is understood as permanent." This excerpt illustrates her depiction of how AIDS is among the most feared of diseases in our current culture.
The central argument of AIDS and Its Metaphors is that at this point, AIDS had replaced cancer as the disease with a stigma and that was very unknown. There was an irrational fear regarding this disease because people did not understand it or know much about it. It was one of the first major diseases in the United States that seemed to target a "risk group." People then associated this disease with certain groups of people who were stigmatized because the disease seemed to favor them.
ReplyDeleteSection 6 deals with the belief that AIDS was a punishment since it was sexually transmitted. It was also believed that the disease came from foreign places but it had mutated into something that afflicted "them" and "us". Metaphors of AIDS and viruses were being spread to new areas, especially computers and technology. Sontag claims that the plague metaphor "allows a disease to be regarded both as something incurred by vulnerable "others" and as (potentially) everyone's disease." This passage explicitly states that AIDS crossed boundaries that had usually not been crossed before. This section relates to the main idea of the entire essay because it is a disease that had traveled to the United States but within this country, it still only afflicted certain people and groups. It was still very unknown and raised fear because of this ambiguity.
Sontag’s main argument throughout her second essay discusses the prejudices associated with AIDS and how society must learn to deprive these prejudices of their meaning. She discusses how the metaphor only has power when it is given meaning by the general population. However, she persuades the audience to eliminate these “myth” interpretations of disease. In Section 5, Sontag discusses “plague” and its relation to the current AIDS epidemic. Plagues were considered diseases of sinners as a reflection of character and punishments against a certain group. In the same way, AIDS has its certain “risk groups” that seem more likely affected. Sontag makes the point that although these risk groups are affected in greater numbers, it is not a judgment on character or a punishment, but rather just a disease, as historical plagues have proven to be. The passage that exhibits this claim states, “Plagues are invariably regarded as judgments on society, and the metaphoric inflation of AIDS into such a judgment also accustoms people…to identify transgressing or vicious populations” (142).
ReplyDeleteThe central argument of "AIDS and Its Metaphors" is framing AIDS as the "new" tuberculosis and cancer, more or less responding to her first essay. She argues that because AIDS is feared and stigmatized in today's society, it has developed some of the same metaphoric portrayals as tuberculosis and cancer have in the past. It is feared because it is new and not entirely understood. AIDS has moral values associated with its transmission, adding to the stigmatization of it. Unlike tuberculosis, AIDS is not romanticized as a passionate disease; it is considered ugly and unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteIn section 4 of Sontag's essay, she focuses her argument on the suffering and mutilation associated with various diseases. There is little focus on AIDS in this section, rather she is discussing suffering as a whole. The social construction of each disease is also considered; even though AIDS, cancer, and TB all lead to death, TB was the only one of the three that was romanticized. People are more likely to die of heart disease than cancer, yet cancer in our society is more strongly feared because it is a drawn out process of suffering. These differences exemplify how societal beliefs about diseases shape the perceptions of suffering.
The section is summarized in her opening statement, "Etymologically, patient means sufferer. It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades. That illness can be not an epic of suffering but the occasion of some kind of self-transcendence is affirmed by sentimental literature and, more convincingly, by case histories offered by doctor-writers. Some illnesses seem more apt than others for this kind of meditation (125)."
Our section ties into the essay as a whole because it describes AIDS as a disease of suffering. This fact contributes to its reputation as a disease to be feared and metaphoric representation in society today. In this section, Sontag also challenges the concept of physical suffering, stating that at least a portion of the patient's suffering originates from personal and social understandings of the disease.
In the last section of her essay,"AIDS and its Metaphors," Susan Sontag strengthened her argument of the harmful effects of the metaphors surrounding illnesses.
ReplyDeleteIn section 7, Sontag explains how in the decade or so before the advent of AIDS the treatment of STDs that those illnesses tied to sex
began to be seen as irrelevant.
As she said, "The emergence of a new epidemic disease, when for several decades it had been confidently assumed that such calamities belonged to the past, has inevitably changed the status of medicine. The advent of AIDS has made it clear that the infectious diseases are far from conquered and their roster far from closed" (160).
Because the fear of STDs and all their horrible side-effects were much subdued, a degree of sexual freedom emerged in the '70s that had, in general, never been known. Yet, with the AIDS epidemic, that freedom of sexuality, an essential part of life, gave way to the fear of sexuality. As AIDS, in its beginning, was inherently connected to sexuality, people began to limit their sexual activity. Fear， instead of freedom, characterized many people's lives. So, in her last section, Sontag addressed how the metaphor of AIDS as a consequence of sex and as a backlash against medicine led to the regression of sexual freedom in society.