406 RüdigerKunow
environmental awareness (Kissam Morris 171-73; Olson 51-52). The
theoreticaldimensionofLorde'sencounterwithcancerbecomesevident
right from the beginning as she charges her journal with the task of
transforming the silence often surrounding breast cancer "into language
andaction"(18)againsttheracismandsexismwhichmakethesuffering
of women, especially African American women, even more terrible. As
Lester Olson suggests, "[s]ilence is in these respects like an undetected
cancerembodyingabetrayalofoneself"(58).Canceristhusanoccasion
for renewedreflectionsontheculturalsemanticsofraceand thehuman
body,especiallyawoman'sbody.
To register Lorde's critique is important in the present context
because it highlights the degree to which cancer is embedded—the
"conspiracy on the part of Cancer, Inc." (64)—in the overall cultural
logicofU.S.-America.Writingasamalecritic,itisimportantformeto
acknowledge at this point that there is no intention in my present
argumenttoadjudicatewhatisrightorwrongforwomentodoinsucha
situation.ButI do wantto engageLorde'spoint about"a conspiracy" at
work to assure every woman who has lost a breast that "she is no
differentthanbefore,ifwithalittleskillfulpretenseandafewouncesof
siliconegelshecanpretendtoherselfandthewatchingworld—theonly
orientation toward the world that women are supposed to have—that
nothinghappened..."(64)—allthisintheserviceof"aculturalpolitics
ofhappiness"(Nielsen115).
IntheperspectiveopenedbyLorde'smemoir,acollectivedimension
attaches itself to a vivid autobiographical narrative of excruciating
suffering, even a second semantic code. "The most intimate aspects of
our being and the stories that reveal them give shape and contour to a
lensthatultimatelyrevealsthelossthatwomenandBlacksintheUnited
States experience, as they are woven into collective social categories..
." (Holloway 7), and these include that of cancer patients. As a medical
condition,cancerobviouslydoesnotmakesense,butitmakessenseifit
is revealed as signifying another, correlated cultural condition: the
systemsofdiscriminationsandexclusions,ofracismandableismwhich
characterize the culture and society of the United States. This constant
gesturingtothelargerpathologiesofthecountryendowsLorde'scancer
autobiography—inadditionto its documentarystatus—with whatmight
well be called anallegoricaldimension. Because of Lorde's "desire to
universalize the experience of breast cancer" (Kissam Morris 175), the