Clichés and Cancer

Discourse on the Disease

Abstract

When a healthy person comes down with a life-threatening illness, their perspective changes and life becomes different than expected. In such situations, needs typically arise: to find words for the experience, to create new meaning in one’s life, and to search for new ways to adjust to a new, changed purpose.
This article seeks to address the usefulness of common discourse for people who are tackling life-threatening illnesses and their related treatment, as well as the impact of these metaphors particularly on those diagnosed with cancer.
The subject of this article arose for two reasons linked to the field of pastoral care. I have worked as a nurse for many years in pastoral care of both cancer patients and their close relatives. I was also diagnosed with cancer.
Cancer discourse is to some degree shaped by figures of speech. Such metaphors can reveal both positive and negative attitudes. When the same imagery appears repeatedly in the discourse it starts to sound clichéd.
Scholars and well-known individuals in the arts who have had breast cancer say they paid attention to the discourse after they were diagnosed with the disease. Although this particular kind of cancer is dominant in this article, the subject matter relates to the discourse and clichés related to cancer in general.
The scholars in question have researched how people process difficult experiences. They consider how the discourse is directed at what is hardly possible to express, the subject of pain, which is perhaps best described with a metaphor. The attitudes of oncologists towards war metaphors and the context of other important issues are discussed.