看穿簾幕：愛嘉莎‧克莉絲蒂的《簾幕：白羅的最後探案》

Abstract

本篇論文主要是檢視在愛嘉莎．克莉絲蒂(Agatha Christie)的偵探小說《簾幕：白羅的最後探案》(Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case)裡所描繪的一九四零年代英國社會的文化現象。本論文主要是運用雷蒙．威廉斯所提的文化形成的三要素—殘餘文化(residual culture)、新興文化(emergent culture)及宰制文化(dominant culture)來探討此偵探小說。在小說的表面之下，其實顯露出二次大戰之後的英國文化現象。此外，在《簾幕》裡展現了對維多利亞年代的懷舊之情，以及對那時的宰制文化(後二次大戰文化)的不滿。此二者可以呼應到皮耶．馬舍西(Pierre Macherey)所談論的文本的沉默(silence)。此沉默也可對應到佛洛伊德所提的「潛意識」以及「隱義」(latent meaning)。此小說所影涉的「懷舊之情」及「不滿」最後轉變成了無法言語的沉默(unspoken silence)，或是佛洛伊德所說的「隱義」。此「隱義」乃隱藏於文本的「顯義」(manifest meaning)之下，並且等待有能力的讀者將它揭露及顯現出來。\\r 佛洛伊德的潛意識也被運用到白羅這個身兼偵探及心理分析師的角色。他就像是個文本的讀者，探索著每一個嫌疑犯心靈的潛意識及內在的沉默。他的目的是要找出所有隱藏在每個神秘事件背後的真相。愛嘉莎．克莉絲蒂的《簾幕》就像是白羅用來掩飾小說裡謀殺案真相的簾幕，也是白羅用來告別他偵探人生舞台的簾幕。在讀者讀完此本偵探小說之後，他同時也看穿了隱藏在有如簾幕背後的謀殺真相。他並可洞悉在宰制文化的表面簾幕之後，是一個不停息且介於殘餘文化以及新興文化之間的擺盪過程。

This paper aims to examine the cultural phenomenon in 1940s England depicted in Agatha Christie’s detective fiction—Curtain. Raymond Williams’s thought of residual-emergent-dominant cultural formation is the main approach used to discuss this detective novel. Curtain, under the surface of a detective novel, indeed, exhibits cultural phenomenon in postwar England. In addition, the nostalgia of a Victorian past and the discontent with a dominant postwar culture found in Curtain may relate to what Pierre Macherey calls the “silence” of a literary text. They also correspond to Freudian “unconscious” and latent meaning hidden beneath a textual surface. The nostalgia and the discontent implicitly suggested in Curtain turn into an unspoken silence, or Freudian latent meaning, which is hidden beneath the manifest meaning of a text and waiting to be uncovered and articulated by competent readers. The Freudian “unconscious” is also applied to the role of a detective/psychoanalyst—Poirot, who, like the reader of a literary text, probes into the “unconscious” or “silence” of his suspect’s mind in order to find out the latent truth of mysterious affairs. Agatha Christie writes Curtain as a curtain for Poirot the detective to veil the truth of a murder and to bid farewell to the world on his detective life stage. Curtain also offers a curtain for readers to shade the unspoken silence of a residual culture and an emergent culture within a dominant culture. After a reader finishes reading this detective novel, he may see through the curtain and find out the truth of a murder case. He also discerns that what lies beneath the veil of a dominant culture formation is a non-metaphysical and oscillating process of residual culture and emergent culture.