從隔都到天堂：談辛西亞‧歐芝克之《披巾》、《普特梅賽兒故事集》與《微光世界繼承者》的家屋詩學

Abstract

加斯東‧巴舍拉說「家屋就是我們的第一個宇宙，而且完全符合宇宙這個詞的各種意義」 。家，這一詞既迷人又使人困惑，可以說是「空間中的空間」。本論文試圖藉由猶太裔美國作家辛西亞‧歐芝克之三部作品，《披巾》、《普特梅賽兒故事集》與《微光世界繼承者》，探討「家屋詩學」，歐芝克在這三部作品中，企圖以女性觀點建造她的「猶太家屋」。 猶太文化的獨特性主要體現在家庭中，而歐芝克作品中的多元語言背景、猶太歷史文化及猶太教的呈現，使得歐芝克的家屋充分顯現猶太性。家屋裡的希伯來文、波蘭文與意第希語，猶太家庭特有的裝飾，及住在家屋裡的人對猶太教的救贖想像，譜寫出一部美國猶太移民生活史。 本人認為歐芝克小說裡的家屋，作為維持猶太傳統的主要之地，可以說是一種表現空間，又可以說是人們私密的想像空間、隱身之處。 本論文分成五部分，第一部分「緒論」介紹本研究的主旨及研究方法，緊接在後的第一章「家在隔都—《披巾》」分析歐芝克的中篇小說《披巾》，猶太女人蘿莎․拉伯琳因二戰大屠殺失去家園，一條鍾愛的披巾使蘿莎超越時空的限制，成為她想像家園的媒介。在第二章「猶太媽媽與她的花園—《普特梅賽兒故事集》」，孤獨的路得․普特梅賽兒為了改革紐約市而創造女泥人，對愛與性的渴望引領她到一處奇幻天堂，這座夢想中的天堂之家，與聖經的花園景像相呼應。第三章「家在應許之地—《微光世界繼承者》」閱讀歐芝克的小說《微光世界繼承者》。這本小說中的家屋瀰漫一股疏離感，家屋彷彿與外面世界分離，而家屋內的猶太移民家庭(密維塞氏)在重建家園的過程中，房子裡的每一件物品、每一張相片及家具，都能使居住在家屋內的人產生家的歸屬感。最後一個部分「結論」，再次強調歐芝克的家屋因其展現猶太性，而成為表現空間，對於處在美國文化的歐芝克，家屋成為她展現猶太文化的想像空間。總括來說，透過空間詩學來閱讀《披巾》、《普特梅賽兒故事集》及《微光世界繼承者》這三部作品，本論文「從隔都到天堂」為歐芝克研究提出新觀點。Gaston Bachelard maintains that our childhood home is our “first universe, a real cosmos in every sense of the world” (4). Indeed, the home is one of the most fascinating and most perplexing places. This thesis investigates the poetics of home in the selected works of Cynthia Ozick, who attempts to construct a “Judaic home” through the feministic lens. Ozick’s representation of home—multilingual and evincing Jewish history, religion and culture—makes her texts convey a distinct sense of Jewishness, while the display of domestic objects, the inter relationships, and the use of languages such as Hebrew, Polish, Yiddish, and German, all retell Jewish American collective histories. I contend that Ozick’s literary home, being a Jewish cultural repertory, is a performative space; meanwhile it can be understood as a cache, a hiding place where its inhabitants withdraw into. The thesis consists of five chapters. Following the Introduction that gives the overview of the study, Chapter One, “Home in the Ghetto: The Shawl,” reads Ozick’s The Shawl, a Holocaust narrative that delineates Rosa Lublin’s home as evocative of nostalgia for a lost landscape of home/land and its imaginative recovery through a shawl. Chapter Two, “Jewish Mother and Her Garden: The Puttermesser Papers,” analyzes The Puttermesser Papers, wherein Ruth Puttermesser creates a female golem in the hopes of establishing a paradisic landscape and redeeming the New York City. Chapter Three, “The Promised Land versus Paradise: Heir to the Glimmering World,” through analysis of Ozick’s novel Heir to the Glimmering World, articulates home as a personal paradise, as a Jewish immigrant family, the Mitwissers, sets up a new home in the United States. The Conclusion contains a restatement of my readings. My attempt here is to analyze Ozick’s reconstruction of a Jewish home, where ethnicity is manifested in a spatial domain. Through readings of The Shawl, The Puttermesser Papers, and Heir to the Glimmering World, this thesis, “From Ghetto to Paradise,” sheds a new light on criticism about Ozick and contributes to the local scholarship with a pioneering study on a writer that has been rarely discussed.