柯慈小說中的書寫倫理：文學潛能與書寫責任
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2016
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
本論文探討南非小說家柯慈小說中的書寫倫理。在閱讀柯慈的作品時，大多數批評家將書寫和倫理視為二個獨立的概念，認為柯慈的作品具有倫理的面向是因為其作品討論了倫理議題。本論文批判此概念的謬誤。柯慈的書寫本身即是倫理的展現：文學無法被固化而具有重塑現實觀的潛能，而倫理挑戰我們重新思考自我與他者的關係，二者緊密結合。第一章透過閱讀《壞年頭日誌》討論文學的潛能如何去本體化。此文本特殊的結構──每頁分為三層並有三段的不同敘述同時進行──使其成為幾乎無法（以正常方式）閱讀的文本，然而此特殊的寫作結構揭露所有系統的“彷如”狀態 (the “as-if”)。第二章處理書寫責任的問題。責任應被理解成德希達所談的絕對責任。我將閱讀《聖彼得堡的文豪》和《伊莉莎白．卡斯特洛》二個文本，討論柯慈的書寫如何回應他者。第三章探討在《鐵器年代》中柯慈如何書寫無法言說和再現的受苦經驗。然而柯慈並不將受苦視為屬於他者的問題，受苦是全人類共有的經驗，受苦促使我們重新思索自我與他者的倫理關係。最後一章討論《耶穌的童年》中的記憶倫理問題。對柯慈來說，書寫本身就是見證，書寫的倫理性根植於見證歷史中被遺忘的他者和被遺忘的記憶。新的國家建立在和歷史的決裂，記憶歷史卻成為遺忘歷史。此文本促使我們思考，在處理歷史記憶時，是否能不被制式化和實證的價值標準所匡限，而能夠看到記憶最獨一的面向。
This dissertation investigates the ethics of writing in Coetzee’s novels. Ethics and writing are not two separate notions yoked together in the reading of Coetzee’s writing. I argue that writing and ethics coincide as both have the performative dimension and exceed the constative order. Chapter I addresses the question of how literary writing has the potentiality to deontologize and reconfigure the order of actuality through reading Diary of a Bad Year. Diary is known, or notorious for its exceptional three-tiered structure of narrative, making it impossible to read in a conventional fashion. But this exceptional narrative structure reveals the fictionality, or the modality of the “as-if” structuring all ontological order of actuality. Chapter II engages the issue of writerly responsibility. This responsibility is to be understood as absolute responsibility “before the law” in the Derridean sense, and I will look into how Coetzee’s writing responds to the other in The Master of Petersburg and Elizabeth Costello. In Chapter III, I will read Coetzee’s Age of Iron to see how Coetzee writes the unspeakable suffering that resists representation and analytical framework. Perhaps the way to read and to listen to the suffering is through the “maimed language.” But Coetzee does not see suffering as other’s question. Suffering is a question that concerns us, and he shifts the discussion from the perception of suffering as other’s question to the site of pre-subjective ontological vulnerability where it is possible to reconceive a new and ethical self-other relation. In the last chapter, I will investigate the ethics of memory in Childhood of Jesus. If the state deals with history always in the past tense (the past as another country) and produces national archive in order to close the gate to the past, Childhood raises the singular in personal memory as a way to resist the national amnesia.
This dissertation investigates the ethics of writing in Coetzee’s novels. Ethics and writing are not two separate notions yoked together in the reading of Coetzee’s writing. I argue that writing and ethics coincide as both have the performative dimension and exceed the constative order. Chapter I addresses the question of how literary writing has the potentiality to deontologize and reconfigure the order of actuality through reading Diary of a Bad Year. Diary is known, or notorious for its exceptional three-tiered structure of narrative, making it impossible to read in a conventional fashion. But this exceptional narrative structure reveals the fictionality, or the modality of the “as-if” structuring all ontological order of actuality. Chapter II engages the issue of writerly responsibility. This responsibility is to be understood as absolute responsibility “before the law” in the Derridean sense, and I will look into how Coetzee’s writing responds to the other in The Master of Petersburg and Elizabeth Costello. In Chapter III, I will read Coetzee’s Age of Iron to see how Coetzee writes the unspeakable suffering that resists representation and analytical framework. Perhaps the way to read and to listen to the suffering is through the “maimed language.” But Coetzee does not see suffering as other’s question. Suffering is a question that concerns us, and he shifts the discussion from the perception of suffering as other’s question to the site of pre-subjective ontological vulnerability where it is possible to reconceive a new and ethical self-other relation. In the last chapter, I will investigate the ethics of memory in Childhood of Jesus. If the state deals with history always in the past tense (the past as another country) and produces national archive in order to close the gate to the past, Childhood raises the singular in personal memory as a way to resist the national amnesia.
Description
Keywords
書寫, 潛能, 責任, 倫理, 受苦, 記憶, writing, potentiality, responsibility, ethics, suffering, memory