Metaphor Revised

A Double Edged Sword

Societies have used language in their attempt to express their understanding and rationalizations of life and all that it entails. However, when something is not well understood, society will still try and use language to explain it, even if some meaning is lost in the process. As a result of this need to show understanding, metaphors were developed. Metaphors are comparisons where the properties of one thing that is concrete are imposed on another thing that is less perceivable. Metaphors can be a double edged sword, where more clarity and can be derived from the comparison, or the comparison itself can lead to more confusion. Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse 5 and Susan Sontag in Illness as Metaphor both use metaphors to help understand the ideas of death and diseases that affect society respectively. Vonnegut uses the phrase “So it goes” to help describe how society should feel about death, and Sontag discusses the use of the military metaphors used in medicine to discuss treatments and diseases. However the use of these metaphors obscures the meaning behind what is being discussed. 

Sontag, a cancer survivor and activist, writes Illness as a Metaphor with the intent of challenging the language that tends to describe those suffering from serious illnesses. She is quick to point out that much of the language surrounding illness tends to blame the affected for having these serious diseases. Throughout the examples, she continues to emphasize and establish her stance on how diseases are not a manifestation of a person’s personality and social status, an idea that was commonly believed at the time. She also points out how the language and metaphors used in medicine affect the patients and the doctors themselves. Being a cancer survivor herself, Sontag is able to give a first hand perspective on the language used to describe treatments and how it can negatively affect the patients and the doctors. 

This negative effect on the patients and doctors is captured in the metaphors often used when regarding treatment. Sontag states, “Radiotherapy uses the metaphors of aerial warfare; patients are bombarded” with toxic rays…Bacteria were said to ‘invade’ or ‘infiltrate’ ”(Sontag 65). This warlike metaphor takes the properties and understanding that people have of war and imposes them onto the treatment and behavior of the illnesses. The attributes of war are imposed on the radiotherapy, so that it can be understood better. Additionally, the attributes of enemy invaders are portrayed onto bacteria, so that their behavior can be better understood. Sontag is quick to point out that a similar mentality to a war is created within the realm of treatments. For example, during treatment radio waves are shot at the body, and healthy cells are killed in the attack against the cancerous ones. Cancer is often described as an invasive colonizer that can easily get past the bodies defenses and take over. In fact many reports describe the medical progress in cancer treatments as a war against cancer. Sontag points out that this military rhetoric often brings a sense of pessimism into cancer treatments that is often used to talk about war. She states,

Another to give support to many uninformed doctors who insist that no significant progress in treatment has been made, and that cancer is not really curable. The bromides of the American cancer establishment, tirelessly hailing the imminent victory over cancer; the professional pessimism of a large number of cancer specialists, talking like battle-weary officers mired down in an interminable colonial war- these are twin distortions in this military rhetoric about cancer (Sontag 65). 

Sontag is able to clearly show how the metaphor of cancer treatment and war can obscure the perception of how effective cancer treatment can be and the progress that is actually being made. Doctors are less likely to believe in the effectiveness of a treatment, and as a result patients are left with little to hold onto in terms of their recovery. This negative rhetoric will only add to the patient’s overall ordeal. It is very likely that a patient who is actively discouraged from both society and their doctors are less likely to recover from their illnesses. This unmerited feeling of hopelessness felt by the patients is what Sontag argues against.

Similarly, Kurt Vonnegut uses metaphors within Slaughterhouse 5 to push ideas about the futile nature of death. The infamous phrase “So it goes” is the ultimate metaphor for how Vonnegut views death in his book. Anytime death or tragedy occurs within the book, it is immediately followed by the phrase “so it goes”. “So it goes” is a phrase used by the Tralfalmadorians who believe that  “When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is ‘so it goes’ ”(Vonnegut 16). Vonnegut uses the simpleness and compliance implied by the phrase “so it goes” to describe death. As a result, death within the book is accepted as this very simple and meaningless state of condition. 

The biggest problem with the “so it goes” metaphor would be that it completely obscures and ignores the great feeling of loss that is experienced by death. Vonnegut is able to completely disregard all of these feelings using “so it goes”. “So he was hoisted into the air and the floor of the car went down, dropped out from under him, and the top of the car squashed him. So it goes”(Vonnegut 8). This is a great example of how all the feelings established by the sentence were disregarded by “so it goes”. A car falling down and crushing someone is a very serious and traumatic event that doesn’t just happen every day. People do not just go along with their lives after witnessing this, and they feel very powerful emotions after witnessing or even hearing about something like this. But, Vonnegut takes away all of that emotion and gravity from the situation, and writes it off as something to just move on from with “so it goes”. “There was a battle there. People were dying there. So it goes”(Vonnegut 33). Here Vonnegut is able to use “so it goes” as a metaphor for the pointlessness and inevitability of death and war, and as a result, there should be no serious reaction because death just happens. Death just comes and goes on its own, so there is no need to feel any loss or worry. However, this metaphor clearly obscures the real feelings of loss behind death. Unlike the Tralfalmadorians, humans do not see time in a circle. Time is viewed linearly by humans. When death occurs people must learn to cope with the idea of loss. Grievers must learn to live without seeing a cherished loved one. There is real loss and pain felt during these times. If everyone were to view death as just another occurrence, life would lose all meaning because if death is inevitable, then all of life meaningless. As a result, people would have no real motivation to strive and continue. This nihilistic point of view portrayed by the metaphor clearly obscures the meanings of life and death. The joy, pain, and loss that is experienced through life and death is completely undercut by “so it goes”. 

Both metaphors are obscure the meanings of what they are being compared to by taking away hope and feelings from the people affected by them. Sontag captures how cancer patients are left feeling hopeless and afraid after they hear about and experience treatment from weary doctors, who themselves have succumbed to give into the ideas of the metaphor. These feelings of hopelessness and fear are ones often felt and described with war, and patients must be able to cope with the idea that they are going to war against their own bodies.This idea creates a mentality within the patients that they themselves are the enemy. Patients must consider the idea that something they’ve done has caused their current condition, as if some event had triggered cancer to develop in their bodies, which can create a great deal of mental and emotional trauma for a patient . Vonnegut similarly obscures the ideas of death. However, he takes away any and all feelings regarding death, as opposed to giving people new negative ones to feel. Vonnegut uses “So it goes” to remove any feeling and emotion from death. After any serious tragedy in the book, Vonnegut immediately follows with the simple phrase “so it goes”. This idea of acceptance and inevitability forces the reader to register death within the book as completely normal and just another part of life to just go through and accept, which completely ignores the gravity of emotions felt and experienced during loss. Both metaphors obscure the understanding of what is being described by either adding new unnecessary feelings or by completely undermining and disregarding the need for such strong emotion. 

Language is a very powerful tool that helps society express ideas about things hard to understand like illness and death. In an attempt to rationalize and understand these complex ideas, societies are vulnerable to losing important meaning and unintentionally marginalizing groups of people. Vonnegut is able to use so it goes as an embodiment of how death is just and ordinary occurrence, not worthy of any serious consideration or emotion. Sontag argues that the military metaphors in medicine cause serious damage to cancer victims by adding new feeling of hopelessness and fear. Both metaphors clearly obscure their comparisons and oversimplify the things they describe. 

 

Works Cited

Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five: Dell Publishing, 1969.