The Confessional Compulsion, Therapy, and Symptom in Defoe's Moll Flanders and Roxana

This study adopts a theoretical, rather than a historical, perspective to examine how Protestant predecessors Martin Luther and John Calvin prescribe a new theoretical basis for private confessions to provide solace to the spiritually desperate. In addition, it argues how Daniel Defoe's representation of confessions in Moll Flanders and Roxana interrogates/undermines such prescription, reducing the spiritual practice to a compulsion or even a symptom. I will first review the critics who have studied Defoe in relation to Protestant Confession. Then I will describe the similarities between Protestant confessional practice (according to Luther and Calvin's prescriptions) and those of Moll Flanders and Roxana. Confession, as described or represented by Defoe, is Protestant in nature in terms of the identity of the confessor, the content, and the effect on the confessed. According to Luther and Calvin, a Protestant confessor can be God, self, church, the community or a minister. Protestant confessants can confess to their confessors for counsel and consolation to cure anxiety resulting from their doubts about the forgiveness of a sin or their salvation. As will be elaborated later, for Defoe, confessants can also confess their anxiety about the precarious state of their worldly existence. Next, I examine how their Protestant confessional practice becomes psychological and compulsive without functioning in the way intended by Luther and Calvin to console the mentally and spiritually afflicted. Their emphasis on consolation, defined by them as ＂the cure of anxiety,＂ renders the practice of confession in the terms of a psychological discourse. Furthermore, as will be elaborated shortly, Calvin's conception of confession as a ＂remedy＂ for doubt about salvation transforms confession into a psychotherapeutic practice. However, the Calvinist doctrine of predestination seems to annul its therapeutic function. Since Calvinists' belief in predestination never allows doubts about personal salvation to be eliminated, confession, as practiced by Calvinists, can become impulsive and repetitive. Despite the repeated assurances of their confessors, confessants' concerns can remain. After an elucidation of Protestant confession in terms of its consolatory effects, I discuss Defoe's representation of dysfunctional confession when confession is secularized in Moll Flanders and Roxana. Defoe's representation of his protagonists' confessions in Moll Flanders and Roxana marks a transformation in the practice of Protestant confession, particularly in terms of its consolatory function - from a spiritual and redemptory practice into a psychological compulsion - a compulsion, in the sense that, when the religious confession falls into secularized use, it no longer functions as originally intended. Moll's confession ultimately becomes compulsive and dysfunctional because her confessor's words are less comforting than her own acts of speaking. That is, her confession still functions in a consolatory manner because of her ＂belief＂ that the utterance of her own inner thoughts is itself therapeutic. On the other hand, Roxana's confession becomes a compulsive practice in that, instead of being therapeutic, it is symptomatic of and contributes to her fetishist mentality. Defoe's representation of the heroines' confessional practices suggests how religious practices can be transformed into mundane practices and continue to structure human discourse and psyche.

關鍵字

Defoe ； protestant confession ； consolation ； Moll Flanders ； Roxana ； compulsion

並列摘要

本文著側重理論式的探討，甚於歷史脈絡的爬梳，主要探索目前學界較疏於研究的，新教告白的心靈慰藉功能。研究著重於新教始祖路德及喀爾文為此功能，所提供的理論依據及實踐方法，並進一步探究，迪福在兩部小說中，如何運用新教告白的心靈慰藉功能，去刻畫兩個女主角的一生，同時在其人物刻畫當中，對兩位新教始祖所設計的告白實施方式，是否能發揮慰藉功能，隱微透露出作者的質疑。正文在做文獻探討之後，會討論路德和喀爾文所描述的新教告白實踐，與迪福在《摩兒‧法蘭德斯》及《羅珊娜》這兩部小說的密切關聯。我會深究路德和喀爾文所描述的新教告白實踐，事實上已有心理化與轉化成心理衝力的面向，似乎已不能發揮慰藉信徒，讓信徒保有必定得到救贖的信念。而迪福在《摩兒‧法蘭德斯》及《羅珊娜》這兩部小說中，則呈現新教告白如何因為告白的世俗化應用，從一個發揮救贖功用的宗教實踐，轉化成為一心理層次的衝動，也就是，當告白因告白者世俗化的挪用之後，就不再發揮提供有效心靈慰藉的功能。摩兒‧法蘭德斯的告白，最後變成只是一種心理衝動而不能帶給她慰藉，因為到最後，她告白的對象所說的話，並不如她告白這一行為來的有療癒效果，而羅珊娜的告白，也變成一種心理衝動，因為她的告白話語的特色，彰顯並強化她的戀物症狀，也未發揮心靈慰藉功用。迪福的對二位女主角的告白行為的呈現，暗指宗教實踐如何被信徒，漸漸轉變成為世俗化的應用版本，而繼續影響人們的言說行為與建構其心靈狀態。