(Im) Possibility of Reciprocation: Gift Economy in “Letter from an Unknown Woman＂

Abstract

This paper uses theories of gift economy to examine gift relationship in no gift giving can be wholly disinterested and no gift relationship can be\nsustained without reciprocation.\nthe Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig’s novella “Letter from an Unknown\nWoman.” Based upon the gift relationship, this paper further interprets love\nrelationship between the hero and the heroine. Marcel Mauss observes that\ngift-giving, dictated by social rules, requires reciprocation. But Georges\nBataille considers that this reciprocity inherent in gift relationship is not\ndifferent from transaction. Instead, he uses the conception of expenditure to\nexplain the behavior of gift-giving. Gift, in Bataille’s view, should not be\ninterpreted as exchange but as loss free from calculation. Jacques Derrida, in\nline with Bataille, regards the gift as impossible because the gift, once\nrecognized as reciprocal by obligation, is not gift any more. According to\nMauss’, Bataille’s and Derrida’s theories of gift, reciprocity becomes the key\nfactor for analyzing gift relationship.\nHighlighting gift relationship, “Letter from an Unknown Woman”\ndramatizes a first-person female narrator’s deathbed confession, which\ncontains her lifelong unrequited love for the addressee. Going against the\ngrain with conventional reading, this paper argues that the heroine is not\ntotally satisfied with such an unreciprocated relationship. She still demands\nreturn, even though it is nothing but the hero’s memory of her. The heroine’s\ncontradictory attitude indeed reflects the contradiction of Bataille’s theory: