Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its MetaphorsIn these groundbreaking studies, Sontag strips away the myths that surround the two most stigmatized diseases of our time Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor in 1978, while suffering from breast cancer herself. In her study she reveals that the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of the patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding