Narrative Style and Subject Fluidity in Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle

論瑪格麗特．愛特伍《女祭司》敘事結構與主體流動性

劉怡佩(Liu, Yi Pei)

指導教授 ： 林宜莊

國立清華大學/人文社會學院/外國語文學系/碩士(2015年)

https://doi.org/10.6843/NTHU.2015.00115

摘要

加拿大作家瑪格麗特．愛特伍的《女祭司》因利用其貌似雜亂無章的寫作策略呈現人類流動的主體性而被視為一部後現代小說。愛特伍利用《女祭司》的多重敘事方式，探討了人類主體的變動性，亦即人類的主體性時常因為與其他客體的互動而處在一型塑及轉變的過程。在《女祭司》中，女主角瓊．佛斯特藉由時常創造新的寫作敘述進而建構自己的多重身分，故本篇論文主要方向為探討《女祭司》中人類變動的主體性以及其主體與客體之間的交互作用。
女主角瓊．佛斯特不只是《女祭司》的敘事者，更是一名撰寫哥德式羅曼史的作家。當瓊敘述自己的過往經驗以及當下生活境況時，瓊的生活故事常會混雜著她正在撰寫的哥德式羅曼史的情節。因此，此篇論文藉由耙梳《女祭司》的多重敘事結構進而主張愛特伍藉由創造小說中的多重敘事結構來呈現人類複雜且可以被重複塑造的主體性。同時，愛特伍利用揉雜瓊的現實生活與哥德式羅曼史模糊了現實與文學作品的疆界，更進一步的呈現主體性的虛構特質。當瓊塑造其哥德式羅曼史中受迫害的女主角時，同一時間瓊也藉此呈現了人類的自我形象即是一不斷被社會所建構出來的產物。因此，在一自我重塑的過程中，瓊不僅僅是一哥德式羅曼史的創作者，她更同時成為了自己作品中的主體。正因為瓊的主體性時常隨著她構思的哥德式小說敘述而改變，故瓊始終無法達到一固定的主體性。
《女祭司》藉由仿擬哥德式羅曼史的故事慣例進而呈現女性如何被此種文類所鼓吹的「永恆的女性」形象誤導，迫使女性認同其小說中女主角應具備的形象。而這種主體與外界重複映照進而型塑自我形象的過程十分符合米歇爾．傅柯所提出的異托邦理論。故本論文援引傅柯的異托邦理論來探討《女祭司》中主體在型塑其主體性時所反應外在影響的過程。並且，藉由羅列女主角瓊所受到《女祭司》中其他角色、流行文化的影響，本論文提出瓊多樣且多變的角色僅僅是她對於自身經驗所投射的結果。
透過使用異托邦理論來討論《女祭司》，本論文主張並總結於傅柯所提出的異托邦理論為分析後現代敘事框架中所呈現具有多重面貌的主體性提供了新的可能性。

關鍵字

《女祭司》 ； 瑪格麗特．愛特伍 ； 主體性

並列摘要

Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle (1976) has often been categorized as a postmodern fiction for its writing strategy that performs the fluid subjectivity of a subject with its seemingly disordered form. With its multi-layer narrative style, Atwood delves into the dynamics of human subjectivity which is always in a process of forming and transforming as it encounters and interacts with objects. By exploring the way how the heroine Joan comes to build her multiple selves and structuralize narrative by an ongoing fictional writing, this thesis discusses the dynamic human subjectivity and the interactive relationship between the subject and the objects.
Joan Foster, the heroine and narrator, is a writer of Gothic Romance. As she speaks her own past and present, the narrative that is supposed to be her real life accounts comes to blend into the Gothic Romance which she is constantly composing. Thus, by breaking down the multi-layer and intersecting narrative, this thesis contends that Atwood creates a multi-layer narrative structure to present the complexity of human subjectivity that repeatedly recreates itself. Atwood arranges Joan’s life story and dilemma by means of a Gothic story into order to blur the boundary between real and literary world and thereby foregrounds the fictionality of subjectivity. As Joan writes about the frustrated and victimized Gothic heroine, she is also enacting how one’s self-image is first and foremost a socio-constructed recreation. For such a self-recreating process, Joan is both the creator and the subject of her writing. Joan’s subjectivity fluctuates with her narrative and no fixed subjectivity can be arrived at.
Lady Oracle, by parodizing the convention of Gothic Romance, reveals how “the eternal feminine” is imposed upon women and forces them to identify themselves with a socio-cultural fictionalized image of what women should be. The entire process is like a repeated mirroring effect that Michel Foucault proposes in his theory of heterotopias. Therefore, this thesis also applies Foucault’s concept of heterotopias as an approach to explore how the mirroring process functions to form and reform one’s subjectivity. By comparing Joan with other characters and popular culture, this thesis argues that Joan’s multiple selves are merely the projections of her life experiences.
Through discussing Lady Oracle with Foucault’s concept of heterotopias, this thesis concludes that the idea of heterotopias suggests new possibilities to analyze one’s fluid subjectivity which is within a postmodern narrative frame.

並列關鍵字

Lady Oracle ； Margaret Atwood ； subjectivity

參考文獻

Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.” Ecrits. Trans. Bruce Fink, Héloïse Fink, and Russell Grigg. New York: Norton, 2006. 75-81. Print.

Lee, Hsiu-chuan. “Screen, Maze and the Female Dissimulation: Consuming Gothic Romance in Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle.” [簾幕、迷宮、女人虛飾:以瑪格麗特‧愛特伍《女祭司》為例看歌德羅曼史消費]. Review of English and American Literature. [英美文學評論] 7 (2004): 83-123. Print.

Works Cited

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---. Interview by Linda Sandler. “A Question of Metamorphosis.” Ingersoll 40-57.