易碎物品，強效策略：尼爾•蓋曼的短篇小說作為後現代書寫

Abstract

本論文試圖檢視尼爾•蓋曼的短篇小說從寫作技巧和主題上如何展現後現代思維。互文文本、諧擬的使用、以及挑戰理性、身分和現實等議題的傳統觀念，是蓋曼的短篇小說中顯著的後現代特徵。藉由抹去既有概念所建立起的界線，蓋曼的短篇小說呈現出反抗單一論述的特色，並時時邀請讀者共同參與創作。 論文主要分成三部分。第一部分以克里斯蒂娃的互文性理論以及沃的後設小說中對於諧擬的探討為基礎，討論蓋曼如何顛覆文類傳統，以顯示傳統的建構性以及對讀者的侷限性。第二部分討論啟蒙時代以來對理性的過度崇拜所帶來的傲慢與心胸狹隘，反而阻卻認知事物存在的可能性，因此蓋曼認為應以承認取代解釋。本部分也兼論語言取代經驗成為構成身分的元素，而身分雖仍維持不定性，卻不影響其反過來影響敘事的能力。第三部分探討現實觀，蓋曼提倡真實與虛幻無法分別也無須分別，因界線早已內爆。

The thesis examines how Neil Gaiman's short stories can be read as postmodernist writing in terms both of thematics and writing strategies. The application of intertextuality and parody, along with the challenges to traditional concepts of rationality, identity, and reality, are the most outstanding postmodernist features of Gaiman's stories. Through eliminating the boundaries constructed by the preconceived ideas, his short stories deconstruct banal language, linear narrative, and the accepted world order, always inviting the reader to take part in constructing the story. This thesis is divided into three parts. The first part is based on Julia Kristeva's theory of intertextuality and Patricia Waugh's discussion on parody. My argument is that Gaiman breaks up the conventions of literary genres to reveal that they are constructed and are liable to put a limit on the reader. In the second part I move on to the problematic both of rationality and identity. I first discuss how the deification of rationality leads to arrogance and narrow-mindedness, which block the way to experience the possibilities in life. As a result, Gaiman proposes that what people should do is to refrain from trying to explain all phenomena, but to acknowledge their existence. As to the problematic of language, I argue that in Gaiman’s short stories, language rather than experience forms identity. While identity always remains unstable, it nevertheless has the power to affect the narrative retroactively. The third part explores Gaiman's reconceptualization of reality. He considers the real and the illusory to be both indistinguishable and needing no distinguishing, because their boundary already implodes and moving back and forth in this double world is the way we have lived and should live.