Under the Shadow of Mackenzie King?-Narrative Spatialization as Working-Through in Kerri Sakamoto's The Electrical Field

敘述空間化與創傷消解：坂本凱莉的《電場》

10.7015/JEAS.201212.0591

劉紀雯(Kate Chi-Wen Liu)

坂本凱莉 ； 敘述空間化 ； 創傷敘述 ； Kerri Sakamoto ； narrative spatialization ； trauma narrative

歐美研究

42卷4期（2012 / 12 / 01）

591 - 634

英文

坂本凱莉的《電場》呈現主角朝子藉由敘述同時「展演」與「消解」她的創傷，而這個敘述空間就好像是一個電場一般，在破碎的敘述中充滿情感與歷史因素之糾葛。「展演」與「消解」在受創者心中是兩個並存也互相衝突的力量，而非二元對立，或先後出現。因此，朝子的敘述同時展演了她的創傷症狀和反應她如何逐漸消解創傷。首先，她的受創症狀（如痲痺自保、情緒爆發、縈迴夢境與自我合理化）既反映了她所受到的限制，也表達她對重建人際關係的慾望。其次，以空間角度閱讀朝子的敘述－也就是閱讀她的空間化的敘述與空間實踐－可以看出她如何逐漸消解自己的創傷：藉由敘述編織一個複雜卻寬廣的社會因果脈絡，因此得以由多元角度了解與接受死亡及創傷，同時肯定人我之溝通與分享。

The novelistic presentation of ”the electrical field” in Kerri Sakamoto's eponymous novel-that is, the emotional entanglement of the characters as filtered through Asako's mind-can be seen as the narrative space of its protagonist-narrator, Asako, through which she both acts out and works through her traumas. Instead of being binary opposites (with one superseding the other), acting out and working through are ”countervailing forces” in Asako's traumatized mind, functioning against one another as they overlap. Asako's fragmentary narration thus reveals both the symptoms of her traumas and her difficult means of working through them. The symptoms include protective numbing, emotional outbursts, and repeated dreams and rationalization, which are seen as both responses to her social constraints and expressions of her desire for social interaction. Asako's narrative working through is then read ”spatially”; that is, in terms of its spatial form (with narrative fragments and recurrent motifs) and of Asako's spatial practices in the yard, on and beyond the electrical field, and on Mackenzie Hill. Her narrative spatialization, in other words, is her way of working through traumas and weaving a complicated network of causality, motif and human connection, through which trauma and death are understood from multiple perspectives, while communication and sharing are confirmed.

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