Susan Sontag

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The Way We Live Now By Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag’s piece “The Way We Live Now,” helps shine a light on one main event during the 1980’s known as the AIDS epidemic. Throughout her short story, they are different indicators to believe that Sontag is talking about the virus but she never openly states the word ‘AIDS’. The author writes this piece at the peak of the epidemic, which at this time is still a taboo to many. By the not using the term ‘AIDS’ our author helps paint a picture expressing the downfalls of friends, victims, and even readers to help connect the dots to the male character’s unmentioned disease as well as her reason behind not openly stating the unprecedented virus.
Sontag uses context clues to help explain that she is talking …show more content…
The context clues help the reader understand the beginning stages of this virus. Sontag includes more evidence that she is writing about AIDS in the dialogue between the many …show more content…
During this time period, it was taboo subject to talk about what was going on. When Sontag released this short story to the New Yorker, it was at the peak of this mind-blowing epidemic. Along with the bad connotations behind the term ‘AIDS,’ societies prejudices against the virus we astonishing. It is believed that if Sontag openly used the term that she would have a lot of hate towards her as a writer. But, that reasoning did not stop the author fully. As the reader, we can see why the subject is so important. It is understood that Sontag portrayed the bountiful abundance of characters as society; the characters tried to dance around subject to avoid the negative stigma as well. The author italicized the word “that” (2) to describe the virus throughout game of telephone with her characters. The italicized term is the first place we notice this. As the story continues, we see “Not judging people” and “wondering about motives” (3) are phases said by characters about the unknown male who has this virus. Through the dialogue by the characters you can clearly see the judgment of the society at the time. It easily recognize society's failure to demystify the disease. Even though all the numerous characters considered to be “friends” (7) with the unnamed individual. These phases help describe why Sontag did not bluntly state the word ‘AIDS’ throughout her story.
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