- 學位論文
書寫母親╱她者的語言：牙買加‧金潔德《我母親的自傳中》中的詭魅和歇斯底里
Writing the (M)other Tongues: The Uncanny and Hysteria in Jamaica Kincaid's The Autobiography of My Mother
摘要
這篇論文探討《我母親的自傳中》中的女性主體，如何藉由詭魅和歇斯底里的自我呈現，說出逝去母親不言之語，作為其表達身為他者的無可言喻創傷。筆者並將探討本小說以追尋母親作為加勒比海女性的自我表意符號，是如何有意識地表達其政治性抗爭與身分認同的侷限。論文第一章先介紹作者牙買加‧金潔德 (Jamaica Kincaid)一貫所處理的母子關係主題，是如何與殖民和父權主義互相糾葛，惟其藉由反叛母親，作為拒絕雙重精神和社會壓迫的自我覺醒女兒形象，在此篇小說作了翻轉，在本部作品以自我傷害的方式，回頭去追尋那不可得的逝去母親的身影，引起了評論家不同的評價和見解。第二章援引精神分析的詭魅理論，以此檢視小說主體作為女性與被殖民者後代，其性別和族群身分認同，是如何與母親的身體互相連結，並進而能夠重新述說作為加勒比海的創傷歷史主體可能性。第三章分析小說主體中歇斯底里的欲望結構和敘事，分析如何以肉身再現詭魅，以自傷的行動和身體展示被壓迫的權力結構，並以重複性的質詢式語言，呈現被壓迫者無可發聲的抗議，和其試圖顛覆殖民父權的政治抗爭。本論文希望藉由這樣的分析角度，得以重新思考本小說如何處理作為女性和被殖民者的再現議題。
並列摘要
This thesis investigates the ways in which the (m)other tongue, the unspeakable mother’s voice which is silenced as the other, is articulated by a Caribbean female subject, in Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother, by employing the concepts of hysteria and the uncanny. It examines how the two concepts express political resistance against the non-representative shadow of the Caribbean women, and further considers whether the (m)other tongue can articulate an alternative identity for the protagonist. Chapter one points out that the repetitively intensive mother-daughter complex evident in Kincaid’s work is subverted in this novel. Chapter two traces the concept of the uncanny in connection to the body of the mother, and argues that the uncanny narrative in this novel is crucial to the protagonist’s politics of self-representation. Chapter three focuses on the novel’s emblematical discourse of hysteria as the representation of the abject subject, and examines how the mechanism of hysteria exposes and attempts to debunk the white-male dominant power structure. Chapter four concludes this thesis. Overall, this thesis aims to generate a reconsideration of the novel’s response to the issue of representation of the other Caribbean history.