Repressed Identity

AIDS, as the world's most severe and terrifying disease, bear the most complicate controversies. People with AIDS suffer the most severe repression both physically and mentally. During this process, the recognition of identity becomes their prime appeal. Susan Sontag's study on the metaphor of AIDS criticizes the process of how AIDS is covered with metaphor and appeals the society to give back the truth to the disease, which provides a new perspective for analyzing the recognition of identity in the case of AIDS.Inspired by this, this thesis explores Susan Sontag's research on the metaphor of AIDS from the viewpoint of morality, race and politic. Firstly, by adopting Erving Goffman's theory of spoiled identity, the thesis elaborates that AIDS functions as moral repression by stigmatizing individual, punishing community and revenging on society. Then the thesis turns its focus on illustrating that AIDS functions as repression on inferior races. By elaborating how the whites construct “Africa origin theory” and “Menaced Asia”, it reveals that AIDS is an ideal tool for the superior race to executing repression. The last part of this thesis aims at expounding that AIDS also functions as political repression on the infected subjects by the ruling authorities in the field of extreme regimes, political parties and public advocate.In conclusion, it reiterates that the meanings surrounding AIDS are multi-sided and all center upon the expression of repression.