Transformation and Breaking of Cancer Metaphyor: Study on Self-narrative of Cancer Patients / 中国医学伦理学

ABSTRACT

After cancer became the number one public enemy threatening global life and health in the 20th century, it was given various negative metaphors. As cancer mortality rates rise, cancer metaphors gradually spread to various corners of society and cause public panic. In the 1970s, China and the United States each appeared a female cancer survivor, Lin Guo and Susan Sontag. Both of them noticed the dual marginalization faced by cancer patients in China and the United States in social and medical fields during their own cancer and treatment processes. To reverse the situation of cancer patients, they actively engaged in social actions. Their actions not only helped to enhance the subjectivity and initiative of cancer patients, but also downplayed the growing fear of cancer in Chinese and American society at that time due to cancer metaphors. Based on the personal diaries and biographies of Lin Guo and Sontag, this paper elaborated on how these two women transformed and broke the metaphor of cancer in different social cultures and reconstructed the social significance of cancer from their life experiences such as family and upbringing environment, educational and work experiences, cancer and treatment.