摘要
玛丽·雪莱所著《弗兰肯斯坦》自从1818年出版以来,吸引了无数读者并被译成多国文字。近年来评论家们对它的关注更是愈来愈热。本文结合了法国当代重要的精神分析学家和哲学家雅克·拉康(Jacques Lacan 1901—1981)的关于人类心理发展的理论以及女性主义批评理论,并以此为理论框架,详尽分析了小说中的主要角色维克多·弗兰肯斯坦及其创造物——“怪物”的心理发展,二者的关系,怪物形象所包含的意义,以及语言在人类心理发展,尤其是性别确定中的作用。本文分为五个部分。
第一章简要回顾了《弗兰肯斯坦》自1818年出版以来获得的关注及评论。评论家们从各个角度,运用很多不同批评方法对该小说进行了分析,近年来大量关于它的评述更是引人瞩目。本章还特别把已有的关于该小说的心理分析及女性主义批评提出来单独论述。
第二章简述了本论文的理论框架,即雅克·拉康(Jacques Lacan 1901—1981)的关于人类心理发展的理论。在拉康的主体理论当中,“人”在从婴儿期开始的心理发展过程中,其丰富内涵和外延(想象级)被逐渐消解。人成了各种关系中的符号,一旦赖以存在的符号关系消失,人也就变的毫无意义。当孩子认识到自己是人类中的一员,就自然而然的进入预设的语言体系和由此而来的语言机制(符号级)。目前方兴未艾的西方女性主义文化批评家们也把拉康看作自己的理论先驱之一。
第三章详尽分析了“想象级”和“符号级”这两个概念在《弗兰肯斯坦》中的体现,二者的关系,以及后者对前者的排斥性。小说显示出“符号级”世界对“想象级”世界的排斥及否定是以消解母性的躯体为代价。而“怪物”这一形象正象征着“想象级”世界。
第四章把重心放在了“符号级”世界,尤其是其中的女性性别的构建上。“符号级”世界在本质上是一种预设的语言体系。在玛丽的《弗兰肯斯坦》中,语言在对“怪物”的排斥及否定中发挥了巨大的作用。本章论述了语言在“符号级”范畴中的巨大影响,包括它对女性定位及人类社会知识的制约作用。文章指出,语言本身的改变才是实现性别平等,发展人类社会知识的关键。
Since Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was published in 1818, its popularity has indeed been prodigious. But academic criticism of this novel has been thin until the last twenty years. Now the novel has been gradually taken quite seriously for its possible effect on a popular audience, revaluated and admitted to the high-culture pantheon of Romanticism. Critics analyze it from various kinds of perspectives.
According to Lacan's theories about the imaginary and symbolic orders, gender and language, and feminists' drawing on the ideas of Lacan, the present thesis purports to join the two aspects together, and then try further exploration in a psychoanalytic reading of Frankenstein with feminist components. Mary's novel describes clear human's path to the Symbolic orders from Imaginary orders and what will happen if something goes wrong in this process; moreover, she also stresses the essential role of language in it, especially in the aspect of gender identity.
This paper consists of five chapters.
Chapter 1 presents the critical history of Frankenstein, with emphasizing the previous feminist and psychoanalytic readings on the novel.
Chapter 2 presents Lacan's theories on the imaginary and symbolic orders, gender and language, which functions as theoretical frame in this reading. This part firstly looks back the origin of psychoanalytic approach to literature, and secondly describes Lacan's theories on the imaginary and symbolic orders, gender and language, as well as the feminists' drawing on the ideas of him.
Chapter 3 makes a detailed discussion about the concepts of imaginary orders and symbolic orders reflected in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the relationship between them as well. The novel describes vividly the contrast between the world of the mirror-image, or double (the Imaginary), and that of kinship, language, and social life (the Symbolic). And this novel in turn demonstrates that the symbolic order's insistence on denying the Imaginary comes at the cost of excluding the maternal body. This part focuses on two points. The first is the relation among the image of mother and two leading characters in this novel (Victor Frankenstein and the monster), and the second is the monster's path to monstrosity.
Chapter 4 concentrates on the functions of language in the building of Symbolic orders, especially of women's identity, which is clearly showed in the novel. Rather than being a reflection of society, rather than merely adding to knowledge, language determines knowledge and society. According to Lacan's theories on language and feminists' point of view, it is language that builds the Symbolic system; language is a realm of
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