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论安吉拉·卡特的小说对现实和主体性的颠覆
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摘要
建立在精神与肉体的对立之上的二元对立是西方文化的基石:自我/他者,主体/客体,男性/女性。二元对立所反映的是西方父权制文化的本质:其根本的对立就是男性与女性的对立。男性总是与“精神的”相联系,是主动寻求知识并进行理性思索的“主体”;而女性总是与“肉体的”相联系,是被男性进行认知的“客体”,是男性欲望的客体。男性的特权是通过不断地使女性边缘化来维持。英国作家安吉拉·卡特在她的文学创作中致力于对传统的二元对立的两性关系的挑战。本论文选取卡特的三部作品《霍夫曼博士的邪恶欲望机器》(1972),《新夏娃的激情》(1979)和《马戏团之夜》(1982),探讨卡特怎样通过在作品中对现实和男性/女性的主体性进行消解和重建,以体现其对父权制所定义的两性关系进行质疑和重建的主张。论文的主体分为三章:第一章分析卡特如何通过使作品不断彰显其虚构性,来挑战作为父权制理念根基的所谓“现实”,达到质疑父权制性别理念的目的;第二章和第三章分别探讨上述三部作品中卡特对女性的客体形象和男性的主体形象的颠覆和重建。论文得出“卡特的最终目的是要质疑和消解传统的性别关系,寻求两性之间的平衡与和谐”的结论。
     卡特的几乎所有作品有一个共同的特点,那就是对西方文化的传统进行审视,对西方文化所包含的固有的有关社会、历史、政治和性别的理念进行审查,尤其对以男权为中心的文化传统中妇女被客体化的地位和男性的主体地位进行挑战。卡特的策略是在小说中对现实主义的宏大叙事进行消解,改写被打上深刻的父权制烙印的西方文化中的传统故事,因为她认为影响和塑造了这个世界的那些传统故事并没有反应现实和真理,而只是反应了父权制下的权利关系。卡特的改写主要是通过在小说文本中揭示现实的虚构性和通过虚构文本来重构现实,以及戏仿和扭曲西方传统文化中女性和男性的典型化形象—女性作为男性欲望的客体,而男性则为主体—达到颠覆并重建男性和女性的主体性的目的。对现实的解构和重建是为了消解父权制理念的根基,揭示父权制的一系列有关性别的理念是由文化传统建立的,是强加于女性的,而非所谓的绝对真理;戏仿并解构西方传统文化中的女性和男性的陈规形象的目的是批评父权制将男性和女性划分为客体和主体的二分法,揭示性别角色不是天生的,是非自然的,是由父权制文化建立的。卡特的策略是后现代主义的,因为她对现实,主体性和表现论的颠覆正是后现代主义的核心内容;她的策略更是女性主义的—颠覆现实和主体性是为了体现女性主义的主张,重建具有显著的女性主义特征的叙事。卡特通过她的小说重新塑造了世界,探讨了如何建立女性自己的叙事,而不至于让女性的声音被启蒙运动以来的宏大叙事所淹没。
     本论文的理论基础是建立在后现代主义与女性主义的结合点上:两者都对启蒙运动以来的宏大叙事进行质疑,认为其所凸显的是西方父权制的霸权话语,并且维护以权力的意志设计和制造的统一的社会秩序;两者都认为西方传统文化所表现的是父权制的权利关系,而非真理:男性为主体,女性为男性欲望的客体。论文选取卡特的创作盛期的三部作品,探究安吉拉·卡特如何游弋于后现代主义的语境为其提供的广阔的“文字游戏”的天地,深刻地质疑并颠覆父权制的理念。论文将通过对这三部作品的文本分析,展现卡特的思想发展的线索:《霍夫曼博士的邪恶欲望机器》主要是对父权制对女性的压迫进行揭露,考察性别神话的历史;《新夏娃的激情》揭露了性别神话的根源并对其进行解构;《马戏团之夜》用女性的叙事重建两性关系以及主体性。
     前人对卡特的研究主要是针对单个的作品。我的论文将上述三部卡特的作品作为一个有机的整体,一个三部曲来进行研究。三部作品在解构宏大叙事方面具有共同性和延续性,体现了作者思想发展的连贯性。如果忽略卡特的女性主义思想发展的过程和线索,对卡特的研究就会片面地强调她是一个女性主义的斗士和呐喊者,而看不到卡特真正要寻求的。我的研究要得出这样的结论:无论是对女性陈规形象还是男性主体的颠覆与重塑,卡特的最终目的是要在文化意识层面消解两性之间的不平等的权利关系,因此她在解构父权制理念的同时,也戒绝激进女性主义或乌托邦女性主义所宣扬的将女性的权利置于男性的权利之上的主张。卡特要寻找的是一种男性与女性之间的平衡,尽管在追寻的过程中她显露了太多的困惑。
The divisive structural logic which separates and determines the hierarchy between the "mind" and the "body", the "self and the "other", the "subject" and the "object" and, masculine and feminine, is the cornerstone of Western epistemological systems, among which the dualism of man and woman is essential to Western culture. In this hierarchical system of binaries, the man is related to the mind, and he is the subject of his own desire, while the woman is always associated with the body, and she is the object of man's desire. The privilege of the man has been maintained through both the intellectual marginalization and physical destruction of the woman as his Other throughout history. As a dominant feminist writer, Angela Carter subverts this binary logic of man and woman and interrogates the traditional gender relationship in her fiction. Divided into three chapters, this dissertation analyzes how Angela Carter subverts representations of reality and subjectivity to overthrow the patriarchal binaries concerning gender relationship in her three novels:The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972), The Passion of New Eve (1979), and Nights at the Circus (1982). Chapter One analyzes how Carter deconstructs the representations of the so-called reality where the patriarchal norms are grounded. Chapters Two and Three explore the subversion of the subjectivity of both men and women in traditional culture. Through the subversion of reality and the subjectivity, Carter dismantles the traditional gender categories with men as the subjects and women as the objects. Her ultimate intention is to reconstruct the subjectivity of men and women, and seek a balance between the oppositional sexes.
     Carter devoted her whole literary career to deconstructing the traditional norms of Western culture. In her fictional works, she puts those master narratives in Western culture that misrepresent women into question and rewrites them. Carter rewrites stories to show that the traditional narratives—especially those concerning issues of gender—are stories, not truth but only shapes constructed by conventions, and therefore, can be rewritten and reorganized. By rewriting, Carter on the one hand borrows the representations of the so-called reality and the subjectivity of both males and females, on the other hand subverts those representations through parodying and distorting them. Reality is deconstructed by the novels'revealing themselves to be fictional constantly to expose the fictionality of the gender norms. For the deconstruction of subjectivity, both male and female images are presented to be unnatural and dehumanized. Those images are not real men and women, but representations modeled by patriarchal norms. Carter's strategy is postmodernist, in the sense that her subversion of reality, subjectivity, and representation remains at the center of postmodernism; and meanwhile her strategy is more of a feminist—by using and abusing those historical images simultaneously, Carter is able to subvert the patriarchal binary logic that reduces women to the objects of man's desire.
     I ground my dissertation theoretically in where postmodernism and feminism intersect: subversion of modern representations. Both postmodernism and feminism claim that the representational systems of the Western culture have admitted only the vision of the constitutive male subject; both dismantle the "Grand Narratives" of realism in which Western representations of reality, male, female, sex, and gender relationship are products of access to power, not to Truth. In Carter's challenge, postmodernism and feminism work together successfully to overthrow the representations of reality and male/female relationship in patriarchal norms. This dissertation will make a textual analysis of the three novels of Carter in the above perspective, one by one, taking care of the connections between works. Therefore, the analysis progressing from the Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, through the Passion of New Eve, to finally Nights at the Circus, reveals the procedure from Carter's subversion of the traditional representations in Western culture to the reconstruction of the subjectivity of both men and women.
     Even though there have been numerous scholars who have done researches on the works of Carter, none of them have viewed the three novels as a trilogy with connections between each other. By taking the three novels as a "trilogy of subversion", my study will offer the development of Carter's feminist thoughts:The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman exhibits the oppression of women and reveals the gender myth of the patriarchal history; The Passion of New Eve explores the origin of that gender myth and deconstructs it; finally, Nights at the Circus reconstructs the gender relationship. Most of the critics of Carter emphasize Carter's critique of patriarchy and her fighting for a position for women in the patriarchal history. However, they fail to trace how Carter's feminist thoughts develop through her works, and what she really aims at in her fiction. Carter does not only criticize; she explores—she scrutinizes the cultural origin of the oppression of women, of the gender myth. Her exploration reveals her rejection of both matriarchy and patriarchy, and her desire for a balance between the two sexes as her final goal. Through the textual analysis of the three novels, my dissertation will reveal the process of Carter's exploration.
引文
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