掩飾不名譽的事實∶現代主義回顧性小說中第一人稱敘事者的心理變動過程

Suppressing Unsavory Truths: Psychological Dynamics of First-person Narrators in Modernist Retrospective Novels

熊積慶(Ji-Ching Hsiung)

指導教授 ： 羅林 博士

國立中正大學/文學院/外國語文學系/博士(2014年)

摘要

寫實主義小說格外注重道德議題且教化意味甚濃。 部份寫實主義作家嘗試進入到人物內心，忠實呈現他們在面對道德問題時內心兩難之景況。本論文聚焦現代主義回顧性小說，這種次文類凸顯第一人稱敘事者於重述過往時的自主性。不同於寫實主義小說中的敘事者，這類敘事者刻意潤飾他們的故事，目的在於掩飾不名譽的事實。 緒論首先說明這類小說如何於二十世紀初期萌芽，並敘述研究中使用的方法。接著依序深入探究三本現代主義回顧性小說，試圖找出當中的敘事者在掩飾不名譽的事實時心理變動的過程。柏格森認為直覺是一種讓自我或內在生命得以緜延的方式亦是得以記錄物質世界流動變化的方式。 在《大亨小傳》中，尼克．卡拉威對於蓋茲比的態度開始是模糊的，然而在他漫長的思維過程中重組有關蓋茲比的事件，進而有了不同的詮釋。其實受到蓋茲比悲慘結局的衝擊，尼克對於這位白手起家人物的不名譽行徑輕描淡寫，而讚揚他想要實現夢想的決心。 在《羅麗塔》中，杭伯特．杭伯特像是在法律訴訟中同時代表雙方的律師。他在回憶錄中試圖對抗大眾對戀童癖好的憎惡，並透過憤恨心理明顯特徵之自我欺騙建構自己極樂境地。 如同尼采哲學中禁慾主義的僧侶引導憤恨改變方向，羅麗塔讓杭伯特的憤恨轉向自己，認為自己才是該被怪罪的人。《長日將盡》將此次文類推向極致。小說中主人翁及敘事者是管家史蒂文斯。 他經歷德勒茲的「生成他者」。 這位年邁管家在旅程中，從其裝束與語言上看來儼如一位紳士貴族。他試圖在旅行日記中「貢獻」所知，而這卻是他試圖解釋或掩飾不道德情事的說詞，其中包括關於他用大半輩子服侍的公爵之事。 總結來說，上述這些敘事者在面對不名譽的事實時，各自展現不同掩飾的方法。他們的寫作讓我們得以挖掘他們的心理變動過程。藉由並置這三本現代主義回顧性小說，本論文亦是關於此次文類發展之研究。

關鍵字： 現代主義、 心理寫實主義、 費茲傑羅、 納博科夫、石黑一雄、 《大亨小傳》、《羅麗塔》、《長日將盡》、憤恨

關鍵字

《羅麗塔》 ； 《大亨小傳》 ； 石黑一雄 ； 納博科夫 ； 費茲傑羅 ； 心理寫實主義 ； 現代主義 ； 《長日將盡》 ； 憤恨

並列摘要

Realist fiction pays particular attention to ethics and tends to be didactic. Some realist writers endeavor to get into the minds of their characters, faithfully treating their internal struggles to make ethical decisions. This dissertation concerns modernist first-person retrospective novels, a sub-genre accentuating the narrators’ autonomy in reconstructing the past. It argues that the narrators, unlike their realist counterparts, consciously embroider their respective stories so as to suppress unsavory truths. Following an introductory chapter that considers the germination of this particular mode of fiction in the early twentieth century and sketches out my theoretical concerns, the dissertation scrupulously examines three such novels, attempting to detect psychological dynamics of holding back conscienceless facts within each narrator. Bergson regards intuition as a method of “thinking in duration” which registers the continuous flow of reality. In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway’s attitude toward Gatsby is occasionally equivocal, but in his prolonged perception he reassembles the events concerning Gatsby and enters into them directly as a way to overcome the limitations of his own perspective. Affected by the calamity of Gatsby, the narrator downplays the immoral and outlawed behavior of the self-made man and eulogizes his will to realize his dreams. In Lolita, Humbert Humbert seems to be a lawyer representing both sides of a lawsuit. He often imaginarily subverts public moral disapproval of his pedophiliac lust, and constructs a fictive world of ecstasy through the self-deception characteristic of ressentiment. While for Nietzsche the direction-changer of ressentiment is the ascetic priest, it is not a priest but Lolita who ultimately seduces Humbert into the realization that he himself is to blame. The Remains of the Day pushes the sub-genre to a new extreme. Stevens, the protagonist and narrator of the novel, seems to go through the experience of becoming-other; the aging butler on his journey poses as a gentleman, both attire and language. Stevens’s “contributions,” built on the protean nature or becomingness of things, turn out to be his rationalizations to conceal the unethical truth about Lord Darlington, whom he spent much of his life serving. In sum, facing morally disreputable truths, the narrators display different ways of suppressing those truths. Their writings allow us to track them as they are psychologically in flux. Juxtaposing the three modernist retrospective novels under discussion, the dissertation is a compilation showing the development of this unique sub-genre.

[KEYWORDS]
Modernism, psychological realism, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Vladimir Nabokov, Kazuo Ishiguro, The Great Gatsby, Lolita, The Remains of the Day, ressentiment

並列關鍵字

The Remains of the Day ； Lolita ； The Great Gatsby ； Kazuo Ishiguro ； Vladimir Nabokov ； F. Scott Fitzgerald ； psychological realism ； Modernism ； ressentiment

參考文獻

Works Cited

Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner. Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations. New York: Guilford, 1991. Print.

Bittner, Rüdiger. “Ressentiment.” Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals. Ed. Richard Schacht. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994. 127-38. Print.

Botticelli, Sandro. The Birth of Venus. 1486. The Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Web. 8 Jan. 2014.

Bradshaw, David and Kevin J. H. Dettmar, eds. A Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Print.