從賤斥到異質倫理天堂 : 以克莉絲蒂娃 精神分析理論閱讀東妮•莫莉森的《樂園》

From Abjection to a Herethical H(e)aven: Reading Toni Morrison’s Paradise in Light of Kristevan Theory

蔡儀婷(Yi-Ting Tsai)

指導教授 ： 劉亮雅

國立臺灣大學/文學院/外國語文學研究所/碩士(2009年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2009.01988

摘要

本論文旨在探討東妮•莫莉森小說《樂園》中所探討的「排外」的課題。本論文從克莉絲蒂娃精神分析理論來閱讀這本小說。當其他針對小說的論述皆著重於意識形態的探討，如種族主義與社會階級，本文從克氏的精神分析理論切入，著重於本書人物的內心探討。本文引用克氏的理論重點:賤斥及異質論理，來探討書中人物的排外傾向。克氏的理論告訴我們排外是主體構成的重要機制，被排除的賤斥體也會不斷地干擾主體。本文的第一章綜論克氏的理論架構。第二章援用賤斥來闡述盧比鎮居民的排外情結。第三張用異質倫理論述Convent中的女性如何架構一個包容異質的避難所。

關鍵字

東妮•莫莉森 ； 《樂園》 ； 克莉絲蒂娃 ； 賤斥 ； 異質倫理

並列摘要

This thesis explores the issue of exclusion in Toni Morrison’s seventh novel, Paradise. Different from previous critics’ focus on ideological aspects, including race, gender, and politics, I examine the novel’s issue of exclusion from Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic perspective, including her theoretical notions such as abjection and herethics.
The first chapter serves as the survey of key concepts in Kristeva’s framework. These theoretical notions are abjection, herethics, and the semiotic. And finally, I explore the role of art and literature relating to these theoretical concepts. In the second chapter, I apply Kristeva’s notion of abjection to analyze the problem of the novel’s central community: Ruby. I argue that Kristeva’s abjection presents the importance of exclusive practice in the identity formation of the individual, the society, and the nation. Furthermore, she gives us innovative insight that what is excluded by the subject never stops haunting. I demonstrate how the symbolic represses and excludes the racial and sexual other in the novel. In the end, I argue that though the experience of abjection is necessary in the town’s members’ subject formation, their rigid observance of racist and sexist principles leads the town into collapse.
In the third chapter, I argue that the town’s neighboring community, the Convent, is under the reign of the maternal. Contrary to Ruby’s observance of patriarchy, the emphasis of the maternal in the Convent emancipates the residents from their traumatized past. Moreover, the women in the Convent practice a kind of maternal ethics that demands one to respect the abject other, be it psychological alterity, such as the corporeal, or a social other, such as a foreigner. Morrison’s emphasis of the maternal resonates with Kristeva’s maternal ethics, herethics.To explain the effect of this maternal principle, I apply Kristeva’s theoretical notion of herethics and semiotic to illustrate the benefit of such administration based on motherhood. In the end, I argue that the women’s practice of herethics enables them to cure past wounds.

並列關鍵字

Toni Morrison ； Paradise ； Kristevan Theory ； abjection ； herethics

參考文獻

Aguiar, Sarah Appleton. “‘Passing On’ Death: Stealing Life in Toni Morrison’s Paradise.” African American Review 38 (2004): 513-19.

Ainley, Alison. “The Ethics of Sexual Difference.” Abjection, Melancholia and Love: The Work of Julia Kristeva. Ed. John Fletcher and Andrew Benjamin. London: Routledge, 1989. 53-62.

Baym, Nina., ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.

Beardsworth, Sara. “Freud’s Oedipus and Kristeva’s Narcissus: Three Heterogeneities.” Hypatia 20 (2005): 54-77.

Bouson, J. Brooks. Quiet as It’s Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison. Albany: State U of New York P, 2000.