語言為倫理中的他者: 唐‧迪立羅的三部曲

Abstract

中文摘要 本論文旨要就迪立羅的三本小說: 《名字》(1982), 《白色雜音》(1985)和《毛II》(1991)探討語言在後現代中如何扮演他者的角色， 首先以列維納斯的倫理架構作為檢視的主軸，強調語言和一個不可化約的他者的關係，再審視唐‧迪立羅對語言的觀察如何呼應列維納斯倫理中所強調的感官性，使不再拘泥於文字聲音的呈現， 而以身體感官的感受作為和他者對話的首要機制。 語言為他者的討論共分為三個面向：第一個面向探討《名字》中感官和環境的深層對話，再與語言文字原本的神秘性相呼應，列維納斯的斷時性(diachrony)則被用來說明他者的捉摸不定及無法比較性，同時也顯示自我的絕對被動性。第二個部份以《白色雜音》中所呈現的死亡概念為主軸， 進一步討論直接和間接的身體語言， 直接的身體語言敘述自我對死亡不停歇的恐懼， 再加上科技對生活影響的觀察，產生一種間接的身體語言，將自我的無助描寫得更加透徹，自我不僅沒有任何主導權且一步步地被他者化(Othered)。第三個面向是對影像語言的探討，其呼應的是後現代中影像已取代語言文字成為更強勢語言的狀況， 但迪立羅有著不同於列維納斯的寫作企圖: 雖然同在一個突顯他著不可化約及不可統整的前提下， 自我似乎不只被質疑且幾乎消融殆盡，但迪立羅卻在倫理關係的耙梳中看到探討自我的必要，以列維納斯對他者的責任及回應概念出發， 證實自我的可能性如何一次一次出現在對他者的回應中，而這些新的可能性並非只是隨機的結果， 而是自我獨特性的顯現，其中蘊含了複雜的自我解讀， 證實了自我在回應他者的同時，仍存有某種自主性及自由。 李歐塔的異教徒的語言遊戲及事件的時間概念(event) 也被用來闡釋自我對他者的回應如何在倫理關係中被激發出來，也就是倫理關係中的自我並非單一面向。 整個倫理關係的探討回應到後現代最棘手的人文論述:在如此的倫理關係解讀中，自我的可能性及獨特性如何重新定義後現代中的人本主義(humanism) 和產生另一種對話的可能。This dissertation aims to explore three of Don DeLillo’s novels, The Names (1982), White Noise (1985), and Mao II (1991) to see how language plays the role of the ethical Other in the postmodern age. The analysis, pivoted on Levinas’s ethics, would first stress the relation between language and the irreducible Other and go on to examine how DeLillo’s observation of language corresponds to Levinas’s ethical perspectives which are marked by sensibility. That is, DeLillo’s language in terms of ethics goes beyond the notion of language which is restricted to word-sound linkages. The empirical perception is the premier arena for the dialogue with the Other. The discussion on language as the ethical Other mainly falls on three distinct aspects. First, DeLillo in The Names presents the wor(l)d reading which comprises the profound conversation between the senses and the surroundings and imbricates the original mysteries of words. The discussion draws on Levinas's notion of diachrony, demonstrating how time accounts for the irreducibility and incommesurability of the elusive Other as well as the radical passivity of the self. Secondly, the discussion goes to the immediate and mediated corporeal language, hinging on the idea of death in White Noise. The immediate bodily language relates the self’s incessant fear of death. In addition, with DeLillo’s observation of how technology affects life, he makes an acute presentation of the self’s vulnerability and helplessness. In the ethical relation, death as the corporeal language is not merely overwhelming but self-othering. Thirdly, it is the exploration of the language of image. It echoes the phenomenon in the postmodern age in which images have become a more imposing and dominant language in communication and information circulation. With similar emphasis on the image as the irreducible and untotalizable Other, DeLillo makes a divergent attempt in writing from that of Levinas. As the self in the ethical relation is questioned, diminished and even dissolved, DeLillo particularly contends the importance to explore the self in such an Other-oriented ethical relation. Starting with Levinas’s notion of the responsibility for the Other, DeLillo demonstrates how the new possibilities of the self come out in his response to the Other. However, these new possibilities are not the contingent orprovisional consequences but the presentation of one’s individuality. The individuality involves complicate reading of the ethical self, confirming there is certain kind of freedom in one’s responsibility for the Other. Lyotard’s idea of pagan language games and the notion of the event help shed light on how the self is spurred to make new moves in the ethical relation. That means the self is no longer single-dimensioned. A profound reading of the self is necessary to understand how the vulnerable and passive self is rendered the potentiality for new possibilities, a way to assert one’s individuality, in particular. In addition, such an exploration of the ethical relation makes a remarkable response to the discourse of humanism—to redefine humanism in the postmodern age in terms of the individuality in the language-pivoted ethical relation.