癌症隐喻的转化和破除——癌症患者的自我叙事研究

Transformation and Breaking of Cancer Metaphyor:Study on Self-narrative of Cancer Patients

在20世纪癌症成为威胁全球生命健康的头号公敌后,便被赋予各种负面隐喻。随着癌症死亡率的攀升,癌症隐喻迅速蔓延到社会各个角落,造成大众恐慌。20世纪70年代,中国和美国分别出现了极具社会影响力的女性癌症幸存者——郭林和苏珊·桑塔格。她们二人在自身患癌和治疗过程中都察觉到癌症患者正处在社会和医疗场域的双重边缘化困境。为了扭转癌症患者的处境,她们积极展开社会行动,一方面提高癌症患者的主体性和能动性,另一方面也淡化了当时社会因为癌症隐喻而不断加剧的恐癌风气。基于郭林和苏珊·桑塔格的个人日记和传记,叙说她们的家庭和成长环境、求学和工作经历、患癌和治疗等生命历程,阐述在不同社会文化中这两位女性如何转化和破除癌症的隐喻,重新建构癌症的社会意义。

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.