喬伊斯的《一個年輕藝術家的畫像》及《尤利西斯》之自我、他者與宮籁

Abstract

本論文援引拉岡及克莉斯蒂娃之精神分析理論，探討喬伊思的兩部小說:《一個年輕藝術家的畫像》及《尤利西斯》。筆者認為在喬伊思文本中，符號界與象徵界之間劇烈的辦證過程，既是符號的力量，也是對母親身體的執迷。而體現於喬伊思多變文體中，母親的身體是高度不安定的恐怖力量，卻也是創作過程不可或缺的火種。 藉由拉岡的鏡像理論，筆者試圖探討喬伊思在《一個年輕藝術家的畫像》中對主體形成的創見及小說中對史蒂芬的批判。筆者認為，喬伊思早期作品中對語言及體制的高度自覺，可視為對父親之名與律法的反動。在《一個年輕藝術家的畫像中》，這種隱而不顯的慾望常隱藏在文本細節中，而到了《尤利西斯》，經由小說形式與語言的實驗以及對布魯姆夫婦不尋常的人物刻劃，相當成功地顛覆了父權社會的單一邏輯。 在討論《尤利西斯》的過程中，筆者挪用克莉斯蒂娃的詩語言、宮籟及賤斥等論述，企圖探究《尤利西斯》文本中一字多義、恣意斷裂、繁複等特色。筆者同時認為，《尤利西斯》的最後一章，相當程度的呈現陰性語言的韻律及對母親身體的想像。

Abstract This thesis seeks to explore the semiotic traces in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses with the hope to map Joyce's increasing tendency to embrace the unnamable semiotic, which is foregrounded not so much to threaten as to nourish an artist's imagination. It is my hope to demonstrate the constant tensions between the Symbolic and the semiotic in Joyce's texts. To borrow Kristeva's words, I hope to show that in Joyce's text 'language and its rhythm [are] never one without the other, and [artistic] formulation will continue as long as the struggle does' (Kristeva 1980, 29). In so doing, I hope to read Joyce's texts, especially Ulysses, as signifying practice Kristeva proposes-- to 'demystify...the community of language as a universal and unifying tool, one which totalizes and equalizes' (Kristeva 1986, 210) and to demonstrate 'the multiplicity of every person's possible identifications' (Kristeva 1986, 210), acted out by Bloom and Molly. Lacan’s theorization of the Symbolic order enables us to read Stephen Dedalus’s psyche in A Portrait of the Artist as an Young Man as a subject of Cartesian cogito, and thereby uncovering Joyce’s critique of Stephen’s assumptions of art and life. It is not difficult for us to see that Stephen’s growth fits quite neatly to Lacan’s early theorization of the mirror stage. By tracing Stephen’s growth as a budding artist in A Portrait, we can discover a trajectory of Stephen’s subject formation as a process of further entanglement with the symbolic order, which dominates Stephen's imagination with a network of signifiers. After invoking Lacan's psychoanalytic insights, I draw on Kristeva’s theorization of the semiotic. Kristeva’s engagement in unraveling the process of abjection extends dimension to Lacan’s subject theory. In my opinion, her theory can help me to discuss the indeterminacy of Joyce’s language and the unnamable jouissance inherent in Joyce’s writing. In “poetic language,” Kristeva discovers the signifying process constituted by a dialectical interaction between the symbolic and the semiotic. Kristeva’s unique reading of language points to the gap of language which has the power to subvert the rigidity of the “signifying system” proposed by Lacan. If Kristeva’s semiotic is more important to my thesis, it is not due to my stronger belief in her theory instead of Lacan’s. Rather, it is due to the fact that the language in Ulysses often points to the possibility of such a semiotic reading. I propose to investigate Joyce’s implicit desire in A Portrait of the Artist as an Young Man and Ulysses as an attempt to explore the scope beyond the Symbolic. In my thesis, I underscore the mother as a powerful authority to battle with the Symbolic order in Joyce's texts. Further, by investigating the maternal traces Joyce presents in these two novels, I discover mother in Joyce’s text a valuable space for me to see how Joyce pushes the boundary of the symbolic towards the semiotic.