Audre Lorde and Susan Sontag's personal experiences with cancer are described in their books in great detail; both describe the obstacles that those facing terminal illnesses must endure. Terminal illness distributes anxiety and fear among those facing death and also brings with it social stigmas. Social stigmas placed on individuals diagnosed with terminal illnesses are negative connotations or perceptions bestowed on terminally ill patients for characteristics in which they are deemed different from expected social norms. Both books outline the fear and uncertainty that terminally ill patients face on a daily basis. Lorde and Sontag's aim was to free cancer patients from silence and mystery. They felt it was necessary to give cancer a different perspective. The purpose of this article is to compare how Susan Sontag's Illness as a Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors and Audrey Lorde's The Caner Journals denounce the metaphorical thinking society. Susan Sontag (1978) states that “one cannot think without metaphors” (p. 93), metaphors have been traced back to the French Revolution. So why is society so eager to impose metaphorical thinking about illness and health? Sontag states that “the metaphors imposed on illness are a vehicle for the insufficiencies of this culture” (p.87), which is why society sees AIDS as a “plague”, there is a stigma associated with having l AIDS, especially because society associates AIDS with homosexuality. Some believe that AIDS is a punishment for those who have chosen not to conform to "God's" rules. The truth is that society is poorly educated about AIDS and the metaphors infer society's ignorance of how AIDS is transmitted and its inability to make itself known. AIDS is as widely seen today as cancer was in the 1970s. During Sontag's experience... half of the paper... death rates for cancer dropped dramatically from 10% to over 80% for leukemia. The overall decline in cancer mortality was nearly 54% from 1978 to 2008 (National Cancer Institute, 2011). The decrease in mortality rates is due to improvements in cancer treatments. Recent advances in treatments are due to aggressive cancer therapies and collaborative clinical trial results. More than 80% of patients are expected to survive cancer long-term (National Cancer Institute, 2011). Works CitedLorde, A. (1980). Cancer magazines: special edition. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute BooksNational Cancer Institute (2011). Surveillance epidemiology and final results. Cancer statistics. Retrieved from http://seer.cancer.gov/faststats/selections.php?#outputSontag, S. (1978). Illness as a metaphor and aids and its metaphors. New York, NY: Anchor Books