The Collected Works of Susan Sontag - Alice in Bed

Author: Susan Sontag [USA]
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: Alice in Bed is a play about women, about women's suffering, and about women's self-awareness: a fantasy based on a real person, namely Alice James—the youngest sister of Henry James, the greatest American novelist of the 19th century, and William James, the greatest American psychologist-ethicist. At the age of nineteen, the tide of melancholy overwhelmed her mind; she had tried to muster the courage to end her life; she had endured various inexplicable and extremely tormenting illnesses; she had traveled overseas; she had been confined to her bed; she had kept a diary; she died at the age of forty-three. In Sontag's play about women, Alice James is once again conflated with the Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in imagination. Additionally, Sontag summons the spirits of two 19th-century American women writers: Emily Dickinson and Margaret Fuller, and two representative angry women from the 19th-century stage: Melinda (from Gussel) and Kundry (from Wagner's Parsifal), to attend the "Mad Tea Party." Alice in Bed is Sontag's only play, yet she said, "I felt as if my entire life had been preparing me to write Alice in Bed." Alice in Bed consists of eight acts and is a "fantasy based on a real person," that person being Alice James, who came from an outstanding American family. She had two renowned brothers: Henry James, a famous 19th-century writer, and William James, a great 19th-century psychologist. Like her brothers, Alice was exceptionally intelligent and also a well-known feminist icon, but she was tormented by depression from the age of nineteen, had tried to muster the courage to end her life, and ultimately died of illness at the age of forty-three. The play also features several appearances by Alice's younger brother, Henry James. In this sharp and fictional story, the dialogue is witty and concise, and the plot is tightly paced.