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.