Susan Sontag

What do they mean? What is their purpose? What do they say about us? Using his interpretation to pull psychoanalytical significance from their confusing narratives, he would examine the dream by isolating certain elements and trying to find meaning in each segmented part. In Freud 's work interpretation plays a key role in understanding meaning, however Susan Sontag in her essay Against Interpretation challenges this idea and argues, “ interpretation must itself be evaluated.” She believes that the process fractures the overall purpose and closes to many doors for later…

Susan Sontag was a Journalist, Anti-war Activist and Women’s rights activist (Biography, Occupation). In her essay “In Plato’s cave” she develops several ideas but also contradictions. Sontag emphasizes “it is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power” while she goes further by arguing that when there is a “choice between a photograph and a life, to choose the photograph” (8, 12). The main idea she revolves her essay around is Plato’s cave allegory, which displayed how…

An excerpt from Susan Sontag’s book Illness opens a reader up to a realization that metphors used in relation to illness are the “ill prejudiced by the lurid metphors with which it has been landscaped”. Sontag’s attitude towards metaphors comes from her strong understanding of how they are just a made up illusion to capture an audience. Metaphors are just a made up illusion to capture an audience because they elude the seriousness of a true illness and dishonor it does to an illness. Sontag has…

“Remembering is an ethical act…” “Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself. Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have with the dead. So the belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as humans, who know we are going to die, and who mourn those who in the normal course of things die before us—grandparents, parents, teachers, and older friends. Heartlessness and amnesia seem to go together” (Sontag, 2003, 115). Apparently Susan Sontag has…

Susan Sontag also argues that the presence of a photographer changes the course of events drastically, citing the 1969 photograph “Saigon Execution”, in which a South Vietnamese General shooting a Viet Cong official in the head is captured. Sontag believes that events would have been different had there not been journalists hanging around. Sean O’Hagan from The Guardian wrote “Viewer or voyeur? The morality of reportage photography” about a similar situation involving a photo series entitled…

I acknowledge Susan Sontag's position that photography limits our visual and intellectual understanding of the world. Imagery limits our understanding,has restraints and visual media reveals nothing but what is shown. So why do we do we limit ourselves to only what the camera lets us see? Susan Sontag’s dispute toward the media meditates on how reality is really perceived and how it validates what the real story is behind it.It“. . .imposes a way of seeing”, Sontag suggests. There is so much…

beauty has caused great disagreement and is beginning to semi-change. The issues with beauty standards is an important topic to know because it affects almost everyone. If it becomes more known and people get more involved, then the changes in beauty standards can actually start to make a difference. In Susan Sontag’s article called “A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?”, she goes over her perspective of what the modern-day view on beauty and how the standards are different for men and…

Susan Sontag writes an article, "Direction: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 Needed" for the New York times. In her article, she discusses different advantages of writing and reading. Sontag believes that writing and reading are most pleasurable things instead of efforts. She explains that in the beginning your writing could be a mess, but you have a chance to improve it. We always have a chance to read and rewrite it. At the end of the semester, I totally understand now the importance…

Photography is beginning to wind up as the world's best pastime. We are able to utilize photography as a hobby to explore the world. Susan Sontag, author of On Photography, has an alternate point of view on photography. Sontag infers that photography lets us know of how we think about the world on the off chance that we acknowledge it as the camera records it. Essentially, photography is taking pictures, but it involves the photographer's view utilizing a camera to record both a physical…

The American Revolutionary War was the most important war in gaining America’s independence. Other than the statistics that showed the American troops being greatly outnumbered, the images drawn from the war display their true honor and persistence. Without the access these images, we would not be able to see the realities that the troops faced. The images of war serve to paint the emotions of the people involved in war and expose the real horrifying effects. Authors, John Berger and Susan…