Three Kinds of Neighbor, Three Kinds of Violence: Woman and/as the Other in Kathy Acker

艾克的小說，論者常視之為「暴力美學」，其小說主角以女性為主，探討社會體制對女性的結構性暴力，描述女性在（後）現代社會中的疏離感。艾克所勾勒的女性主義跟傳統女性主義不同之處在於她突顯女性「解放」（性解放）之後的矛盾與弔詭，而不在於一味強調女性的「解放」。本文探討艾克如何借用三種不同的「他者」意象來表達女性與（後）現代「解放社會」的三種暴力關係。「第三世界」的「他者」意象象徵（後）現代社會的「壓制性」暴力，「龐克男孩」象徵「虛無主義式的解構暴力」，而「女機車騎士」或「女海盜」則象徵「革命性暴力」。本文的結論指出暴力並非來自於社會體制本身，而是女性的本質：女性並非社會中受宰制的「他者」，而是自己的「他者」，註定永遠的「自我異化」。

關鍵字

女性；他者；異化；暴力；性革命；拉岡

並列摘要

The main concern of this paper is the relationship between the neighbors (the Other) and violence in Kathy Acker's novels. The recurrent theme of Acker's novels is the relationship between woman and violence. Yet, to render woman's relationship with violence, Acker not only represents woman through sexual relationship, but also explores woman as the “Other” of society through various discourses of the Other or the minorities, including the prostitute, the third world people, the poor, lesbians, gays, punks, pirates, etc. The power or rival relationship between the West and the minorities is mediated by the figure of the prostitute: the figure of the prostitute (woman) and the discourses of the Other or minorities reinforce each other in Acker’s novels. Almost all of the heroines in Acker's novels are prostitutes or like prostitutes. The figure of the prostitute serves as the female flaneur who roams around and witnesses repressive violence on the minorities and the latter's revolutionary violence on society. Revolutionary violence can be further divided into two kinds: nihilistic revolution or real revolution. We will single out the figure of the third world, the figure of the punk boys, and the figure of the female motorcyclists or the pirate girls as the three groups of neighbors of the prostitute, who stand for these three kinds of violence: the figure of the third world stands for repressive violence, the figure of the punk boys for nihilistic violence, and the figure of the female motorcyclists or the pirate girls for real revolutionary violence. These three kinds of violence-repressive, nihilistic, and real violence-roughly correspond to the three different kinds of violence posited by Walter Benjamin in his ”Critique of Violence”: law-preserving violence, law-making violence, and pure violence. The figure of the prostitute standing for the paradox of (post)modernity or (post)modern subjectivity is the connection between these three kinds of violence: (post)modern subjectivity, at least for Marx, Baudelaire, Benjamin, and Acker, has to take on the form of violence, a double violence or even triple violence.