The Dilemma Of Female Talent

Susan Sontag(1933-2004)sparks public attention when her multiple identities as a writer,critic,public intellectual and social activist get recognized since the 1960s.As a remarkable female intellectual,Sontag keeps a watchful eye on the relationship between female talents and their sufferings in history and reality,thus publishing a good number of literary works,reviews and essays related to female talents' destiny in patriarchal society.Her novel In America(2000),regarded as one of her prominent literary masterpieces,presents the life experiences and acting career of Maryna Zalewska,whose story is a dramatized version of the true life of the Polish actress,Helene Modjeska(1840-1909).Set in the social backgrounds of Poland and America in the late 19th century,Sontag wields her creative thinking on reshaping the prototype in history and forms Maryna's artistic image as a pioneer of talented women who make career achievements in commercializing modern world.In structure,this thesis falls into three parts.It opens with a brief Introduction to Susan Sontag herself and her novel In America as well as the purpose and significance of the thesis.Then,it is the main body of the research,which is composed of four chapters.Chapter One provides the literature review and critical background of the study,emphasizing Sontag's criticism on Feminism and her viewpoint that female talents suffer double destiny in consequence of double standards set by patriarchy for men and women.Chapter Two offers a detailed analysis of the dilemmas Maryna meets before and after she moves to America:the political oppression in Russian-controlled Poland that lets her patriotic dream down and drives her to America;the bankruptcy of her California Utopian Society in consequence of physical fatigue and spiritual loss.Chapter Three addresses Maryna's successful return to stage in America,her compromises and sacrifices to cater for consumption-oriented American audience,and her realization that what she really needs is her inner pursuit of art and rational choices in life and love.Chapter Four offers an overall analysis of the difficult processes Maryna and other female talents in Sontag's writings experience to achieve their ambition and public recognition,exploring the way of women's liberation in patriarchal society.This thesis is an attempt to manifest that female talent often suffers a double destiny:one is the destiny of a woman,the other is of a talented individual;a talented woman often falls victim to the resigned womanhood due to the double standards a patriarchal society sets for men and women respectively.The dilemma of this double destiny undermines women's chance to a successful career.To alter this unfair destiny,as Sontag proves,women have to take rebellious consciousness into action and make rational choices in life and love for self-realization.Furthermore,to realize one's own ambitions,a woman should strive to not only overthrow double standards for women,but make improvements of the overall human rights through enhancing social system.