《一無所有》中的旅行辯證

Abstract

本論文是以旅行敘事的角度來解讀魏勒恩 (Ursula K.Le Guin) 的科幻小說《一無所有》(The Dispossessed)，討論在旅行至異地時，自我與他者的相遇，他者的「異質性」(the alterity of the other,簡稱「他異性」)如何影響甚至改變個人的自主性與既有的社會認同。本論文首先以佛洛伊德 (Sigmund Freud) 所提出的「怪異經驗」(the uncanny experience) 理論，以及克莉斯緹娃 (Julia Kristeva) 對此經驗的闡述，說明人對「他異性」所引起的反應，其實是來自於其本身早已具有的異質性。\r\n\r\n克莉斯緹娃認為人之所以會將他者視為不可理解的陌生人，是因為人的內心也蘊藏著一個陌生人。本論文接著引用列維納斯 (Emmanuel Levinas) 「絕對他者」(the absolutely other) 的理論，延伸克莉斯緹娃的主張，並且將自我與他者的關係構築成一個倫理關係。列維納斯認為他者的激進他異性無法整合進入自我的知識系統，因為它只能被經驗感知，既不能被概念化，也不能被智性思考。因此，他者的無限內在性無法被掌握，而主體有選擇是否回應他異性的自由。對於列維納斯而言，選擇回應並超越自我中心，或者不回應且拒絕面對他者之無限性，二者並無對錯可言，皆為可接受之選項。\r\n\r\n《一無所有》的主要人物薛維克 (Shevek) 的故事敘述他如何成為列維納斯倫理的見證人。他的故事提供了一種另類模式，用來觀照現代殖民旅行小說 (modernist colonial odysseys) 中主要角色的旅行經歷。亞當斯(David Adams) 主張這些小說中的主角旅行至殖民地，是尋求在家鄉已不復見的神聖他者，換言之，即上帝的角色。西方世界因宗教的絕對權威崩潰，導致人類的存在價值無法再由神來保證，而有關存在的問題無法由神學來回答。這些小說的主角在異國土地上找不到答案，無功而返，甚至釀成悲劇。列維納斯認為尋找上帝的路是透過對他者沒有保留的仁慈與慷慨而展開，薛維克的故事正好詮釋了列維納斯的主張。\r\n\r\n本論文的主要論證是將《一無所有》這本小說定位成繼承現代殖民旅行小說的脈絡，卻成就另一番文學風貌，不僅因為此書解決了現代殖民旅行小說的神學難題，也因為早在十九世紀末，當地球上已無多餘之地可供殖民時，已有作家在文學的領航下，開始了在異想世界或外太空的殖民。

This thesis tries to examine Ursula K. Le Guin’s work of science fiction, The Dispossessed, as a travel narrative in terms of the dialectical relation between the self and the other. The term dialectics means the condition of the tension or opposition between two interacting forces or elements. The thesis aims to discuss how encountering others exerts the impact on the self whose autonomy and identity structured in the homeland are re-structured during travel in a foreign land. It will first explicate that the uncanny response to the otherness arises from one’s own otherness by employing Freud’s theory of the uncanny and Kristeva’s re-investigation of Freud’s. \r\n\r\nSecondly, Emmanuel Levinas’s theories concerning the absolutely other is used to broaden Kristeva’s contention that one is always already a stranger in her/himself, and to turn the relation between the self and the other into an ethics. Levinas maintains that the otherness of the other (“alterity” by Levinas’s term) is radical and cannot be incorporated into the self’s totality; the alterity in the other is as infinite as that in the self. Neither the other nor the self is graspable. The subject is free to choose between responding to the alterity of the other in order to transcend its own solipsism, and incorporating the other and treating it simply as a reflection of the self. To Levinas, there is no right or wrong with either choice. \r\n\r\nThe story of the protagonist, Shevek, delineates how he becomes a Levinasian ethical man. His travel experience provides an alternative model that would otherwise accomplish the quest that the modernist colonial odysseys have failed—according to David Adams, to seek the divine absolute in an age when the theological questions in the Western world are no longer answered as God has been perceived to be absent. Levinas suggests that the way to the divine absolute, that is, God, is through the detour of opening oneself to the other with generosity and hospitality, which Shevek demonstrates in his travel.\r\n\r\nThe theoretical argument of the whole thesis expects to put The Dispossessed in the continuum of the modernist travel narratives because it offers the solution to the theological problems embedded in those travel narratives, and because to colonize or to transform a familiar place into an imagined land has, since the late 19th century, long been manifested in the works of those writers of science fiction.