The Heterogeneous Sense of Self: Writing Lily's Material Enunciations in To the Lighthouse

張台瓊(Coble Chang)

《淡江外語論叢》 7期 (2006/06) Pp. 257-283

摘要

長久以來，吳爾芙被視為英美現代文學裡意識流小說的主要作家。本文檢驗吳爾芙小說中「詩歌的要素」，企圖將其由現代主義「完整的主體性」這樣的固有意涵暫時詮釋為流動的「異質主體」。不同於意識流對語言的溝通功能之樂觀看法，本章援引克莉絲蒂娃的斥物化理論探究主人翁Lily 對語言表達功能限制之哀悼。因此推論她的主體意識受擾於那些無法以父性象徵語符言說的母性斥物的回返。整部小說所談時停時行的繪畫敘事中，Lily 其實無時無刻不在重建她所感受到的斥物侵擾與分裂，此意向性的過程也形成了本論文所提出的「異質主體」。

並列摘要

Virginia Woolf has long been associated with stream-of-consciousness novels in Anglo-American Modernism. By examining the poetic elements in To the Lighthouse, this study tentatively shifts Woolf from the fixed connotation of the ”unified subjectivity” in the stream-of-consciousness school to ”the heterogeneous sense of subject.” Specifically, different from confidence in the communicative function of language in the stream-of-consciousness perspective, using Kristeva's theory of abjection, I trace the character Lily Briscoe's lamentation for the verbal expression of the immediate perception and show the ”material enunciations” of painting, which compensates for the unspeakable sense of loss of her mother figure, Mrs. Ramsay. In this sense, our psychoanalytic reading of the novel assumes that the subject is conditioned by the limit of language and the unspeakable abject returns and haunts the consciousness of the ”subject.” During her intermittent painting process throughout the novel, Lily reconstructs every moment of abjection she experiences and works out a heterogeneous sense of self.

並列關鍵字

stream-of-consciousness ； the problematic of language ； material enunciation ； poetic language ； choraa ； bject ； abjection of self ； the heterogeneous sense of self

參考文獻

Auerback, Erich,Harold Bloom. (Ed.)(1986).Modern Critical Views: Virginia Woolf.New York:Chelsea House.

Cohn, Dorrit(1978).Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction.Princeton:Princeton UP..

Friedman, Melvin(1955).Stream of Consciousness: A Study in Literary Method.London:Oxford UP.

Humphrey, Robert(1954).The Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel.Berkeley:California UP..

Kristeva, Julia,Leon S. Roudiez(1982).Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection.New York:Columbia UP..