回應他者：當代敘事困境與《午夜之子》的他異敘事

Responding to the Other: The Predicament of Contemporary Narrative and the Altered Narrative in "Midnight's Children"

賴俊雄(Chung-Hsiung Lai)

敘事 ； 魯西迪 ； 列維納斯 ； 他異性 ； 《午夜之子》 ； narrative ； Rushdie ； Levinas ； alterity ； "Midnight's Children"

中山人文學報

36期（2014 / 01 / 01）

59 - 94

繁體中文

時至今日，敘事的「合法性」仍面臨許多挑戰與危機：全球數位科技與視覺文化遮翳了敘事原有的文字光彩；後結構主義的符號遊戲削弱了敘事的言說生命力；後現代對宏偉大敘事的質疑甚至宣告了敘事霸權的瓦解。是以，筆者在本文中將先探究當代敘事的特性、困境與希望。據此，主要將藉助列維納斯倫理哲學中「他異性」臨近性與「繁衍富饒性」的論點來分析魯西迪《午夜之子》中獨特的他異敘事，並進一步論證為何此種他異敘事策略具有濃烈回應他者的倫理意涵，又能如何為身處時代性困境的小說敘事，另闢一條開創性的「他」徑。

TO date, the legitimacy of narrative is still facing many challenges and crises: the images of the global tech-visual culture have overshadowed the narrative of verbal culture; the textual games in post-structuralism have weakened the vitality of narrative tradition; the postmodern war on grand-narratives has announced the collapse of narrative hegemony. Accordingly, the paper aims to examine the characteristics, predicament and hope of our contemporary narrative first. Then, mainly using Emmanuel Levinas's ideas of alterity, proximity and fecundity, it will explore the concept of ”altered narrative” used by Salman Rushdie in his prizewinning novel, Midnight's Children. Furthermore, it will explain the reasons why Rushdies's altered narrative in responding to the Other unpacks an ethical mode of narrativity, and why this narrative strategy can show our contemporary narrative an alternative way out of the present predicament.

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