Abstract
This article aims to explore different metaphors triggered in the first phase of the pandemic of the new coronavirus in Brazil, inspired by Susan Sontag’s work, “Illness as metaphor”. Metaphors are central tools in the processes of subjectification of the pandemic, the virus that causes it and the disease that it materializes. The empirical material that supports our reflections comes from weekly meetings of a therapeutic group that we started to conduct online due to the measures of social isolation in the country, and from participant observation in the internet social media. Based on this, we propose four metaphor keys: the (in)visible, the masked, the divine and the isolated. From these categories, it is possible to reflect on issues present in the pandemic’s subjectivation modes such as ethical-political suffering, subjective resistance, mourning, denial, melancholy, and megalomania.
Keywords:
Metaphor; Coronavirus; Pandemic; Subjectivity, Brazil