On The Decolonization Tendency Of Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag is a great writer, leading American intellectual, and political activist. Against Interpretation, her first collection of essays published in 1966, which has never gone out of print and has influenced generations of readers all over the world. From then on, her name has been connected with "Against Interpretation" and she is called an "un-interpreted writer", as well. Therefore, the paper makes analysis of Sontag's works only when establishes the feasibility of interpretation. And the paper applies this serious attitude of interpretation to guide the whole argument and tries to explore the decolonization tendency of Susan Sontag through analyzing the text.The paper intends to summarize Sontag's metaphoric system through analyzing the work Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, and makes reflection on the metaphoric meanings of tuberculosis (TB) and plague from ethical and moral points under background of politics and culture to decode Sontag's metaphoric viewpoint: TB becomes the sign of superiority and plague stands for illusions of backward exotic world. And the paper uses the post-colonial theory especially E. Said's "Orientalism" and "Culture and Imperialism" to make analysis of the text "Project for a trip to China" on the basis of understanding of the metaphors of TB and plague. The discussion of the relationship between the West and the Orient from the 19 century to the middle of the 20^th century shows that TB only occurring in the Westerners becomes the symbol of the West with colonial tradition, while plague considered frequently happening in the backward exotic world represents the Orient trapped in the colonization. There is a pair of opposite relation refined from the exposition between the West and the Orient.The paper analyzes the text further by using Sontag's viewpoint with the experience of her political trip to explore the traits of excessive decolonization in those former colonies including China for their efforts to eliminate the influence of colonization and fight against the encroachment of cultural imperialism in the early stage of the decolonization. Sontag cannot accept such modes of decolonization...