CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 419
which is almost always present in texts about cancer and the cancer
experience. Growth in cancer cells, even growth at an enormous rate,
has been among the first facts securely established in cancer research^113
as a defining characteristic; whatever else it may also be, cancer is a
"disease of overproduction, of fulminant growth—growth unstoppable,
growthtippedintotheabyssofnocontrol"(Mukherjee37).^114
Tospeakofcancer'sincessantandunregulatedmultiplicationofcells
in termsofgrowth involvesashiftofregisterstowardstheorganic;and
doing so opens up a field of further applications. One such field, and a
highly suggestive one, is comparing the workings of cancer to those of
the economy: "The language used to describe cancer evokes a different
economic catastrophe: that of unregulated, abnormal, incoherent
growth" (Sontag,Illness as Metaphor 62). This is, once again, an
essentially allegorical operation. Capitalism's dependence on (at best
unregulated) growth is a feature already commented on by Karl Marx;
and since then, growth has remained a contentious but crucial topic for
discussions in economics and also among the general public.^115 Making
such a link between cancer and the capitalist economy may seem like a
rather bold move butone that may have severaluses: it mightbe a way
of saying that capitalism, or neoliberal capitalism,isa form of or the
(^113) I have no medical expertise to assess the relative merit of medical
informationonthisissue.Cellgrowthfeaturesprominentlyinthetextwhichthe
American Cancer Society offers to explaintheworkingsofcancer;cf."WhatIs
Cancer?"American Cancer Society.American Cancer Society, Inc., 08 Dec.
2015.Web.10July2017.
(^114) Sontag also touches on this parallel, if only briefly; and for her, the issue is
one of representation, not structure:"Cancer is described in images that sum up
thenegativebehavioroftwentieth-centuryhomoeconomicus:abnormalgrowth;
repression of energy, that is, refusal to consume or spend" (IllnessasMetaphor
63;cf.12,87).
(^115) For the Marxian axiom cf.Capital, esp. ch. 25; my assessment is largely
basedondiscussionssurroundingNobelPrizewinningeconomistAmartyaSen's
Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford UP,1999. Print., where he has also
commentedonthisissue,esp.onpp.40-55.Aculture-criticalassessmentofthe
growth paradigm, or what she calls "development" and "financialization," is
offered by Gayatri Spivak in herCritique of Postcolonial Reason.Cambridge:
HarvardUP,1999.Print.,onpp.72-98,164-225.