Regarding the Pain of Others Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

Regarding the Pain of Others Plot Summary

Preview of Regarding the Pain of Others Summary:

In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag examines the manner in which war is perceived, taking into account such factors as sex, culture and status. She contends that war imagery is open to both interpretation and manipulation. Sontag rejects the notion that war imagery will necessarily compel a repudiation of war, instead arguing that war is itself perennial.

Sontag claims that a photo's meaning is based on interpretation, perhaps formed of ignorance. Images make events seem "real" to viewers, even as they seem "unreal" in their similarity to art. Images, however, have impeccable veracity to the human mind, representing as they do the basis of empirical truth. Sontag reminds the reader, however, that images are first filtered through image-takers.

Sontag explains that a picture's meaning is derived through a synthesis of artifice, context and experience. The viewer's prior experience and the context of the viewing, all...
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