Free Expression: A Study On Susan Sontag’s Novels

Susan Sontag was a famous American literary critic and writer in the 20 th century.Her literary thought and fictional creation point to the same end point,that is,freedom.Sontag’s call for the liberation of texts and the awakening of aesthetic feelings is embedded in her literary and aesthetic ideas,such as Against Interpretation and New Sensibility.The practice of writing novels such as American Spirits and The Volcano Lover: A Romance demonstrates Sontag’s search for individual liberation and spiritual freedom.For the purpose of enriching the studies related to Sontag’s fictional creations as well as drawing reference from reality,the thesis selects In America,American Spirits,and The Volcano Lover: A Romance as research texts,combines the knowledge of narratology and power discipline,explores the journey of Sontag’s fictional characters to explore freedom,studies the presentation of freedom in fictional narrative strategies,and analyzes the value and limitations of free expression.The whole study is divided into four parts.The first part explores the origins of the idea of freedom in Susan Sontag’s novels;the New Left movement of the 1960 s,with its dismantling of authority and its pursuit of freedom,as well as its realization of democracy and autonomy in culture and lifestyle,provided Sontag with a cultural atmosphere in which to speak freely.Halliburton’s and Edgar Allan Poe’s emphasis on feeling influenced Sontag’s literary aesthetic thought.Sontag’s Against Interpretation and New Sensibility emphasize the pluralistic interpretation of literary works and the recovery of sensibility,expressing Sontag’s pursuit of literary aesthetic freedom.The second part focuses on the journey of Susan Sontag’s fictional characters in their search for freedom.The individual’s concept of freedom awakens under the impact of social trends,and undergoes a journey of exploration from indulgence in physical desire to spiritual satisfaction,or begins to think about individual freedom under the impulse of love,and undergoes a path of exploration from numbness and tameness to conscious resistance.The third part focuses on the presentation of freedom in the narrative strategies of Susan Sontag’s novels.The use of narrative techniques such as Intruding Narrator,Narrative Collage,and Narrative Rhythm breaks the traditional novel’s imitation of reality and unilinear natural spatio-temporal structure,and expands the breadth and depth of narrative,thus realizing the author’s creative freedom,the text’s interpretive freedom,and the reader’s reception freedom.The fourth part analyzes the value and limitations of Susan Sontag’s freedom of expression.Firstly,it affirms Sontag’s value in maintaining the dignity of literary freedom,and secondly,it points out that Sontag’s emphasis on form and technique in the practice of literary creation is a double-edged sword,which can provide preconditions for the revaluation of art when used properly,but can easily hinder readers’ aesthetic feeling and experience when used improperly.