Reflection on Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor

Student’s Name
Tutor
Course
Date
Reflection on Susan Sontag: Illness as Metaphor
Are people responsible for the illnesses that they suffer? Do the illnesses reveal their psychological and moral truths about them and the ones they attempt to hide? We get a clear NO from Susan Sontag's video: Illness as Metaphor. These statements are the strongest in the video. However, throughout the video, it is evident that the author uses specific terms such as "modern diseases" and states that one disease can replace another. The author does not mean the illness or treatment, which is the focus of the video, but rather the cultural and moral statuses of the discussed illness. How we have perceived them rather than what they are, hence the video's title.
In her opening remarks, the author describes the illness as a kingdom every individual must visit. She further states that everyone has dual citizenship to the kingdom of well and ill, which every individual must acknowledge with the other side. Throughout the video, the author presents a series of arguments to demonstrate why the two chronic diseases, tuberculosis, and cancer, occupy the place they hold in people's minds in the modern era. Additionally, the arguments show the statuses' establishment and what they reveal about the culture and society. One of the video's most important themes is that although it emphasizes that the diseases reveal nothing more than themselves in patients, she does not hesitate to make far-reaching conclusions about...