CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 417
book hold out the promise of a cure for cancer. In fact, it makes the
opposite point: since cancer is emulating the principle of cell
regeneration, which is the principle of life, it "is impossible to
disconnect from our bodies. Perhaps cancer defines the inherent outer
limitofoursurvival"(462).
Somatics,SemanticsandtheAllegoryofUnregulatedGrowth
The complex and multiply-determined field of cancer research and
thedifferentialsofaccessibilitytoitstherapeuticofferings,togetherwith
the emotional urgencies posed by such an often incurable, deadly
disease, determine cancer's position in the social and cultural manifold.
This confers on any cultural-critical approach to cancer special
epistemological, ethical, and representational responsibilities and
quandaries. As a coda to the previous section, I would like to offer a
few,perhapsinconclusivereflectionsontherelationshipbetweencancer
as a signature illness, "the defining plague of our time" (Mukherjee
xvii)—at least from a Western point of view—, and the signatures
employedbyculturalcritiqueinaddressingthesequandaries.
Susan Sontag'sIllnessasMetaphor(1977/1978; later complemented
byAIDS and Its Metaphors, 1988) is a good starting point for such a
project. Her essay, written at a time when she was treated for breast
cancer, has, to this day, remained a landmark example of how cultural
critiquecaninterveneinand,infact,impactonthepresenceofcancerin
the everyday lives of Americans. Sontag's approach is resolutely
terminological, with strong affinities to today's cultural constructivism
and the latter's assertion that human experience, evenin extremis, is
inescapably mediated by linguistic structures. Accordingly, her essay
targets the growth of "punitive or sentimental fantasies" (3, 52-53, 82)
whichhaveaggregatedinthepublicdomainaroundseverediseaseslike
cancer and which make life even more miserable for patients and their
families. And indeed, long stretches of this text read like a catalogue of
all the detrimental representations given to cancer and other severe
illnesses,withspecialemphasisonthelanguagesofwarfare(64-69)and
social conflict often used in such contexts. Sontag's intervention had an
intenseechointhepublicdomain,notleastbecauseshealsoincludedin
her argument reflections on the psychological effects of cancer
representations in the media on patients and others. Curiously missing