Speaking "Silence"

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) is a critic, writer, public intellectual whose writings cover various scopes. As she is highly acclaimed as the most prominent critic and the most intelligent woman in America, her achievements in literary creation have been comparatively neglected. It is interesting to note that Sontag herself attaches more importance to her fictional writing and just regards her critical essays as the by-products of her literary creation.It is novels that witness the growth and glory of Susan Sontag on the arena of American culture. Sontag has been doing the creative writings all her life, which consist of an important part of all her creation and contribution and reveal the constant changes of her thinking. Sontag is profound and she adopts different postures and attitudes while dealing with different types of writings. Therefore, to approach and get a better understanding of Sontag, we cannot neglect the dimension of Sontag as a writer. Now Sontag has become a hot topic throughout the world. It is the good time for us to further and deepen our study of the literary creation of her.There are two contradictory tendencies existing in the study of Sontag's literary creation:One is to interpret her literary works as the footnotes of "against interpretation", while the other is to regard the fictional writings as the realistic representation of Sontag's cultural and political proclamation. Based on different standpoints, the researchers tend to distribute their interests to the works of Sontag in different times. Some attach more importance to her early novels The Benefactor and Death Kit and probe into the postmodern writing techniques; some emphasize the new realistic and feministic elements in Sontag's later novels The Volcano Lover and In America. Sontag's novels have thus been divided into two separate stages.Sontag is changeable and tends to challenge herself. But is it possible for Sontag to completely reject her previous doctrines in her later writings? Isn't there a coherent theme in all her writings? Could "against interpretation" categorize all the components of Sontag's aesthetic and philosophical thinking? What is the interaction between her literary creation and her critical writing like?This dissertation originates from the considerations on the above-mentioned doubts and questions. Sontag's novels reveal her adoption of different writing techniques, from the experimental and avant-garde to the traditional and realistic, but the changes in the forms could not prove the fracture of the guiding ideas of her writings. In Sontag's novels, there is a unified subject, intellectuals facing spiritual predicaments and seeking for self-transcendence. All of Sontag's heroes or heroines bear artistic temperament. Their struggle and striving are artistic, fantastic and aesthetic. They resort to self-estrangement and try to create a distance between themselves and the outside world. Their silence and their posture of establishing obstacles and rejecting communication reveal exactly their belief of "the aesthetics of silence"."The aesthetics of silence" shares inherent coherence with some key words of Sontag's critical ideology, such as "against interpretation" "camp" and "new sensibility". If "new sensibility" is an aim that Sontag wants to pursue, then "against interpretation" is just a catchword while "silence" and "camp" are the specific means to realize the aim of the liberation of art. Furthermore, "camp" and "silence" are just the same in essence; "camp" is the "roaring silence""The aesthetics of silence" inherits the rebellious spirit of post-modernism and it is the self-denial and a romantic spiritual project. It seems to be autistic but it is actually a shock therapy. However, the curative effect of this therapy is quite doubtful. It shifts off life and resorts to art to resist the "alienation", which brings about not the liberation of art but the impotence of it in reproducing life.The study of the interactions between Sontag's literary creation and her artistic ideology is to extend her thoughts to a wider scope and a different dimension, instead of just imprisoning and branding her writings and her thoughts. This dissertation focuses on the novels of Susan Sontag. Based on the texts, the study will be conducted with the reference of Sontag's aesthetic ideology, especially "the aesthetics of silence". With "self-writing" as the core, the study tries to establish connections between the writer and her works, between the writer's literary creation, her aesthetic ideology and her cultural identity."The aesthetics of silence" is full of contradictions and paradoxes. It reflects the contradictory cultural identities of the intellectuals like Sontag who is confronted with the postmodern living conditions.In her novels, Sontag expresses her acute intellectual and aesthetic cultivation together with her enthusiasm and sense of responsibility. The three different identities, namely, the critic Sontag, the public intellectual Sontag and the writer Sontag, achieve their integration in Sontag's novels. Sontag belongs to America in the past, but her discussions and reflections apply to the world at the present moment. Every intellectual has a "Sontag" in his/her heart.