I Close My Eyes, and I Travel: Imaginary Travel in Susan Sontag’s Play Alice in Bed
Nilay KayaSusan Sontag’s 1993 play Alice in Bed focuses on Alice James, a historical figure from the 19th century who, despite having a privileged education and lifestyle, was unable to fulfill her own dreams. She lived in the shadow of her novelist brother Henry James and her other famous brother, psychologist, and thinker William James. Drawing from Alice James’ diaries published posthumously, Sontag breathes life into her, concentrating on the times when she was bedridden in her sickroom in London, having struggled with illness for most of her life. The sixth scene of the play is set entirely in Alice’s mind and depicts an imaginary journey to Rome. This scene can be considered as a distinct genre in literature, is privileged in narratives of imaginary travel, and points to the efforts a socially very precarious woman in the 19th century made to construct an autonomous identity.
Gözlerimi Kaparım, Seyahatimi Yaparım: Susan Sontag’ın Alice Yatakta Adlı Oyununda Hayalî Seyahat
Nilay KayaSusan Sontag’ın 1993’te kaleme aldığı tiyatro oyunu Alice in Bed (Alice Yatakta), tarihi bir figürü, on dokuzuncu yüzyılda yaşayıp aldığı ayrıcalıklı eğitime ve sahip olduğu yaşam standartlarına rağmen kendini gerçekleştirme fırsatı bulamayan, romancı ağabeyi Henry James ve diğer meşhur ağabeyi psikolog ve düşünür William James’in gölgesinde kalan Alice James’i konu alır. Alice James’in ölümünden sonra yayımlanan günlüklerinden faydalanarak bu oyunu yazan Sontag, ömrünün çoğunu hastalıklarla boğuşarak geçiren Alice James’e Londra’daki hasta odasında, artık yatağa bağımlı olduğu zamanlara odaklanarak ses ve hayat verir. İki sahnesi tamamen Alice’in zihninde geçen oyunun altıncı sahnesi, hayalî bir Roma seyahatini konu alır. Edebiyatta başlı başına bir tür olarak değerlendirilebilecek hayalî seyahat anlatılarına ayrıcalıklı bir biçimde dahil olan bu sahne, on dokuzuncu yüzyılda toplumsal açıdan son derece güvencesiz bir konumda olan kadının özerk bir kimlik inşası çabasına işaret eder.
Susan Sontag was always fascinated by the life of Alice James. One of their common points is that both women were diagnosed with breast cancer in their middle years. While James succumbed to the disease within a few years of being diagnosed, Sontag survived it. In her essay \textit{Illness as Metaphor}, Sontag (1978) referenced Alice James as she discussed the societal dimensions of cancer. In this context, the play \textit{Alice in Bed} (Sontag, 1991) crucially focuses on James becoming completely bedridden, honing in on the final period before her death. Drawing from the illness diagnoses imposed on women in the 19\textsuperscript{th} century, Sontag similarly desired to grapple with the gap between a woman’s body and mind, particularly in terms of their mental confinements.
As evident from the preface Sontag wrote for the play, she perceived Alice James as a figure whose talents and capacities had been battered by societal gender norms, rendering her both physically and metaphorically an invalid. Sontag went as far as to liken her to the famous metaphorical figure Judith in Virginia Woolf’s (1929) work, \textit{A Room of One's Own}, who might have surpassed even Shakespeare’s achievements had she been given the chance to publish. Sontag is able to substantiate this idea through her utilization of Alice James’ posthumous journals. Alice keeps repeatedly quoting herself in the play. Indeed, one can observe in James’ diary entries a pervasive contemplation on the roles she could have assumed in society and the possibilities for greater freedom of movement had she not been plagued by illness like her brothers. Alice’s ability to express herself in her journals is noteworthy and showcases her enduring curiosity about social inequalities and the innovations of modern life. The intellectual debates she engages in with her brothers are indicative of her sharp intellect and ingenious mind. She harbored conflicting thoughts about having a free mind, at one point questioning a nurse about whether her mind would be as liberated if she had received an education.
Alice James was deeply interested in literature and fictional works. In the creative process of Henry James’ writings in particular, she fearlessly presented her ideas to him. During the periods when she was bedridden in the advanced stages of her illness in London, instances occurred of them exchanging ideas about a theater play her brother had been working on at the time. Quoting Anatole France, she emphasized her respect for the abilities of her imagination to create both comedy and tragedy. At the points where she accepted her fate, she articulated the conclusion of her life as the metaphorical closing of the curtain. Susan Sontag’s desire to approach Alice in the drama genre is thus able to gain significance in this way. With its potential to stage the dialectical relationship between body and word, the theater had always been a primary concern of Sontag’s, and her theatrical representation of Alice James’ sickened body invites the audience to identify with her as a Victorian career invalid, as well as to imagine a state of freedom beyond the patriarchal disciplines that were imposed on women’s bodies back then.
Susan Sontag stated regarding this play that she aimed to emphasize the power and limits of the female mind, believing in the mind as the safest place to venture. For this reason, the sixth scene she wrote is notably a purely imaginary journey taking place in Alice’s mind. The discourse created when describing the destination in any travel literature is always one of the main subjects requiring examination. Despite having completed a significant part of the Grand Tour on the old continent, Alice, who had never seen Rome in her life, created a narrative with her imaginary journey that also requires close reading. Indeed, this imaginary travel provides a means to experience different ways of life, as well as the repressed or unrealized sides of her identity: mobility and freedom on one hand and duality and self-division on the other. As Sontag suggested at the end of the play, nothing is vast. There is no greatness in the mind; everything fits into it, and nothing fits. In the face of the prison of the mind, infinity stretches out. Even in the realm of the mind, a call arises for a woman to traverse the streets, demanding an autonomous space in society.
This analysis not only reconsiders Susan Sontag’s dramatic strategies but also evaluates the historical figure of Alice James within the context of gender conflicts. Given the insufficient exploration of Sontag’s relationship with theater and her own theatrical works, this study aims to provide a critical approach to a narrative deserving integration into the tradition of imaginary journey narratives.
