Foreign Literature Studies ›› 2017, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (6): 85-94.

• American Literature Studies • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Stepping into Silence: An Analysis of the Entropic Life in Death Kit

Ren Xiaojin, Zhang Li   

  • Online:2017-12-25 Published:2022-06-15
  • About author:Ren Xiaojin is professor at the School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Wuhan University (Wuhan 430072, China), mainly engaged in the study of American novels and culture. Email: rxj316@whu.edu.cn; Zhang Li is Ph. D. candidate at the School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Wuhan University(Wuhan 430072, China), mainly engaged in the study of American novels and culture. Email: zl6258@163.com
  • Supported by:
    “A Critical Study of Susan Sontag's ‘Silence'” (2014102010201), sponsored by The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

Abstract: In Death Kit, through the presentation of Diddy's life journey, Susan Sontag gives a picture of the highly entropic life led by American people in 1960s. As a representative of modern people, the protagonist Diddy is firstly terrified by his highly entropic environment and steps back into his inner space of self-consciousness. Then due to highly entropic information, the sense of uncertainty in his isolated state of mind is greatly increased. Having been aware of his highly entropic mentality, Diddy attempts to reacquire his sense of certainty by means of changing his way of perception and pattern of behavior. His efforts, presented as the events of murder and suicide, rather than bring back faith to him, cause the exacerbation of his self-consciousness and finally lead him to silence, which means the death of his spirit, the exhaustion of his body, and the controversial state of being of this dead-alive American. The entropic phenomena in all aspects described by Sontag unroll a real picture of 1960s' American life. Her display of Diddy's entropic life thus has an apocalyptic sense.

Key words: Susan Sonag, Death Kit, entropic life, silence

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