Chapter 5

The voice of the virus or the virus’s shadow?

Whether ontologized as a menace, an enemy, or a stranger, within the context of a political management whose rhetorical overtones could be collocated within the frames of securitization and fear strategies (Ferrari, 2018), COVID-19 impacted people’s lives in many aspects besides that of ‘health,’ particularly during the lockdown period. To a certain extent, the emergency measures taken under the flag of health protection, not only in Italy but in many countries around the world, seemed to overlook, if not dismiss, the emotional backlash of the anti-virus policies and their consequences on mental health and psychological well-being.

Through an analysis of interviews with experts and non-experts of (psychological) well-being, this chapter explores the impact of COVID-19 in people’s minds from a metaphorical and persuasion perspective. Specific attention is given to the interviewees’ subjective experience of the virus as something that elicited emotions ranging between ‘fear’ and ‘desire’ with respect to their own self-conception, psychological positioning, and well-being. Through the interview process, as different subjects self-disclose themselves through their experience of the virus, they give rise to a polyphonic system of metaphors whose sound might be called the voice of the virus, or the virus’s shadow.

The use of metaphor in self-disclosure is investigated in experts’ and non-experts’ individual storytelling, to explore how metaphor and persuasion work at the interface between: Individual attempts at searching for, defining and collocating their own identity (“Who am I?”); attempts at defining and directing their own choices and life goals (“What do I want?”; “Why am I here?”; “What is my mission in life?”); and communicative efforts at rendering such identity positioning and goal orientations appealing and convincing to others and to themselves.