Sontags America Critical ReEvaluations of her Nonfictional Writings

Abstract

The thesis discusses Susan Sontag, the American writer, a global figure who is newlineknown across the world for her prolific, fearless writing. The work deals with her nonfictional newlinewritings, in which she vividly describes her thoughts regarding the denigration newlineof American culture, morality and ethos on the face of its tremendously growing newlinematerialistic prosperity. According to Sontag, America s relentless materialistic pursuit, newlineits dream of becoming an international superpower etc. have spread like Cancer across newlinethe country making it morally and spiritually empty and devoid of essential newlinehumanitarian values. newlineThe first chapter introduces Susan Sontag as a great American writer of nonfictional newlineprose. The chapter explores how as a writer as well as a normal citizen, she is newlinefully aware about the nation s unrelenting urge to become a superpower at the cost of newlinethe happiness of its own people. In this chapter, Susan Sontag is introduced as an newlineAmerican writer, and there is the presentation of certain important episodes of her life newlinewhich have played pivotal roles in shaping her non-fictional writings. newlineThe second chapter explores her take on Art and American sensibility, and the newlineinterpretation of texts. This chapter especially discusses Sontag s views on the evolving newlineforms of Art, and its implications in literature. newlineThe third chapter discusses Sontag s criticism of America s involvement in newlineVietnam War. Her essayTrip to Hanoi narrates the ordeals of the Vietnamese citizens newlinewhich she personally witnessed; it also throws light on the way America unwarrantedly newlineimposed the Vietnam on its citizens and sacrificed its own people as well as the newlineVietnamese for its own vested interest. Her take on Sarajevo-Bosnia war also shows newlineher fearless, daunting style while she is presentingher viewson America and its decadent newlinepractices. newlineThe fourth chapter discusses Sontag s take on thedichotomy between the real newlineand the newline