Illness as Metaphor is a 1978 work of critical theory by Susan Sontag, in which she challenged the victim-blaming in the language that is often used to describe diseases and the people affected by them.

In particular, she said that the metaphors and terms used to describe both syndromes lead to an association between repressed passion and the physical disease itself.

Some other writers have disagreed with her, saying that metaphors and other symbolic language help some affected people form meaning out of their experiences.

Tuberculosis was even seen as a sign of punishment by some religions, such as Christianity, leading the afflicted to believe that they deserved their ailment.

[5] Others have taken her idea further, showing not that there is a real "cancer" behind the metaphors, but that all we have is metaphor—even in science—to understand the behavior of a disease that remains mysterious.

[7] While one of Sontag's widest read and most celebrated works,[8][9] Illness as Metaphor received mixed reviews.

[7] Despite this criticism, Donoghue also writes, "If I wanted to see a fine discrimination made, with precisely the right degree of allowance for and against, I wouldn't ask Miss Sontag to supply it.

The literary critic and frequent Sontag detractor Camille Paglia described the book as "clumsy and ponderous, like a graduate-school seminar paper.