Susan Sontag’s On Photography discusses the role and meaning of photography in society, culture and art. In the chapter “In Plato’s Cave,” Sontag uses Plato’s allegory to explain the impact photography has on how we see the world. The way we see the world, she argues, is like the prisoners in Plato’s fables, who are trapped in a dark cave and can only see some projections within the cave, without really knowing and understanding the real world. Sontag believes that photography plays a similar role. The images we see through photography are only the surface of the real world, and these images have been edited and selected so as not to fully reflect the real world. She emphasizes that photography is not an objective way of recording, but a subjective process of creation. I quite agree with this statement, the comment is always subjective about how the same photo can bring different feelings to different people.
The next chapter explores the role of photography in presenting and shaping American society. According to Sontag, photography has played a crucial role in American culture, not only as a visual art form, but also as a tool to record historical events and shape the image of American culture. However, Sontag also pointed out that when photography presented American society, it tended to emphasize the superiority and perfection of the United States, while ignoring some negative and disharmonious aspects. She criticized some photographers and media for using photography to create a false American dream, ignoring real social problems and contradictions. It has to be said that this has also happened in other countries, where governments and media have used photography to portray a beautiful blueprint to the public, to create a sense of prosperity in the country, and to ignore social problems and contradictions.