Illness as Thinking in Virginia Woolf's Orlando

疾病式思考：慾望機器歐蘭朵

Chia-Chen Kuo

《Tamkang Review》 41卷2期 (2011/06) Pp. 97-114

https://doi.org/10.6184/TKR.201106_41(2).0006

摘要

本篇論文分爲兩個部份。第一部份討論德勒茲與瓜達希關於疾病的概念如何翻轉精神分析關於主體和慾望的概念；對德勒茲與瓜達希而言，精神分析誤讀了疾病的意義。透過他們「精神分裂分析」(schizoanalysis)或「疾病式思考」，德勒茲與瓜達希將慾望從精神分析的牢籠中解放出來。對他們而言，慾望是多元、自由流動、穿越並連結起身爲機器的不同器官；疾病帶出生命的本質乃是一種不可區辨的區間(a zone of indiscernibility)。表面上，他們抨擊精神分析，但他們真正試圖要瓦解的對象，則是以區分爲主的常識世界。德勒茲與瓜達希的重點不在主體性是否由閹割以及伊底帕斯情結所造成的匱乏所構成，而在於不斷流動的慾望作爲一種生命之力如何在眾器官、眾機器與眾人之間擺盪。因此，第二部份將著重在維吉尼亞‧吳爾芙的小說《歐蘭朵》，討論歐蘭朵第二次沈睡不起的睡眠經驗如何被診斷爲一種疾病。若運用第一部份關於疾病的討論，這次的「疾病經驗」可以閱讀成一種事件：它打開了歐蘭朵的身體並促使其流變成可隨意組裝、拆卸的機器。亦即，歐蘭朵完全無需手術與掙扎的變性過程其實帶出：性不是如精神分析所認爲的是閹割與伊底帕斯情結的產物。此遠非常識世界所能理解與接受的實際經驗試圖論證，性不過是生命作爲最大機器組構中的其中一個屬性，或生命作爲一不可區辨之區間裡的一個面向。對歐蘭朵（甚至對德勒茲、瓜達希與吳爾芙）而言，重點不在於要二選一（男性或女性），而在於看到生命之力如何擺盪在這兩極之間的狀態（男性和女性）。如果性(sex)都不是永遠固定不變的標籤，遑論性取向(sexuality)以及社會意義建構下的性別(gender)。吳爾芙更透過三位美德女神的退場，展現了歐蘭朵能隨不同情境而不斷流變與流轉的生命之力。

關鍵字

疾病 ； 德勒茲 ； 瓜達希 ； 吳爾芙 ； 歐蘭朵 ； 機器 ； 慾望

並列摘要

This paper has two parts. The first part discusses how Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari renew the concept of illness by overthrowing the psychoanalytic theory of subject and desire. Psychoanalysis misunderstands illness to the extent that it reads illness in a negative way. Nevertheless, Deleuze and Guattari develop their ”illness as thinking” or schizoanalysis which sets desire free from the imprisonment of psychoanalysis and presents it as a force to assemble/dissemble machines. According to Deleuze and Guattari, whether as small as organs or as big as human beings, everything in the world is and should be regarded as a machine. They are connected and disconnected by virtue of desire. In this light, illness manifests the nature of life as a zone of indiscernibility by disclosing the significance of desire. On the surface, Deleuze and Guattari relentlessly criticize psychoanalysis, but their ultimate target is the commonsensical world of differentiation. What is important is not the subjectivity established by the lack caused by castration and the Oedipus complex but the forever-floating desire as the force of life which oscillates among organs, humans and machines.Bearing this in mind, the second part exemplifies Virginia Woolf's Orlando in which Orlando's second oversleep diagnosed as illness demonstrates that Orlando embodies life as a zone of indiscernibility and sex as merely one attribute of this greatest machinic assemblage or one facet of this indiscernible zone. We should not put emphasis on the result of Orlando's sexual transformation (either a man or a woman) but on the possibility which life force/desire oscillates between them (both a man and a woman). With the evacuation of three goddesses, Woolf points out life as a zone of indiscernibility can never be stabilized by any virtue. Its nature is forever floating and it is indiscernible from other objects.

並列關鍵字

illness ； Gilles Deleuze ； Felix Guattari ； Virginia Woolf ； Orlando ； machines ； desire