Abstract
Mental illnesses often inspire artists and writers and are omnipresent in various works, yet the moral adequacy of portraying their images remained controversial: Erving Goffman (2010) had described the challenges the “discreditables” might have faced and the privileges they might get once being uncovered in his essay. However, Susan Sontag believed that wrapping disease in metaphors discouraged, silenced, and shamed patients in her Illness as Metaphor. This paper aims to center the discussion on what the diseases and the patients will represent and the privileges be demonstrated in these texts from a rhetorical aspect? By applying principally the theories of uncanny, abjection, and stigma, this paper has built a theory on presuming Meursault in Camus’s The Stranger has Asperger, then analyze the power of stigma in two recent works: the episode “ADHD Is Necessary” in Taiwanese TV drama: On Children, and a French novel: Nothing Holds Back the Night. The results showed that the mental illness can be an advantageous and necessary metaphor, just as an endowing “Mark of Cain”, threatening yet defensive. Meanwhile
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
