| Acknowledgements | 第1-5页 |
| Abstract | 第5-9页 |
| 中文摘要 | 第9-14页 |
| Chapter One Introduction | 第14-36页 |
| ·Overview of Susan Sontag’s Life and Career | 第14-18页 |
| ·Justification for Fictional Works as Focus of Research | 第18-27页 |
| ·Literature Review | 第27-32页 |
| ·Contribution, Research Methodology and Framework of This Dissertation | 第32-35页 |
| Notes | 第35-36页 |
| Chapter Two Lingering in the Dark Realm of Death | 第36-64页 |
| ·Destruction and Renunciation of the Radical Will | 第37-42页 |
| ·Dreams Propelled and Dissolved by Death | 第42-56页 |
| ·Death and the Aesthetics of Silence | 第56-62页 |
| Notes | 第62-64页 |
| Chapter Three Fighting against the Encroachment of Death | 第64-91页 |
| ·Contemplations on Existential Anxiety | 第65-81页 |
| ·Conscious Self in “Project for a Trip to China” | 第65-69页 |
| ·The Other in “Baby “and “Debriefing” | 第69-76页 |
| ·The Community in “The Way We Live Now” | 第76-81页 |
| ·Against Metaphorization | 第81-89页 |
| ·Illness as Metaphor | 第81-85页 |
| ·AIDS and Its Metaphors | 第85-89页 |
| Notes | 第89-91页 |
| Chapter Four Emancipation in Being towards Death | 第91-119页 |
| ·Being towards Death | 第94-98页 |
| ·Attractions of Opposites | 第98-111页 |
| ·Power of Imagination | 第111-113页 |
| ·Paradox in Women’s Emancipation | 第113-117页 |
| Notes | 第117-119页 |
| Chapter Five Conclusion | 第119-125页 |
| Bibliography | 第125-132页 |
| A List of Major Works by Susan Sontag | 第132-135页 |
