Romanstein: A Revision of the Romantic Self in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"

10.29716/TKSFLL.201206.0002

陳國詩(Charles K. S. Chen)

自我 ； 他者 ； 身分認同 ； 德希達 ； 解構 ； self ； Other ； identity ； Derrida ； deconstruction

淡江外語論叢

19期（2012 / 06 / 01）

20 - 34

英文

在《科學怪人》中瑪麗雪萊雖再現許多浪漫主題，對她同時代人的許多憧憬和信心卻表質疑，尤其是所謂「浪漫自我」。無論浪漫主義者對自我的認識正確與否，它無疑是浪漫精神的主軸，本論文故將探討瑪麗雪萊對這個主軸如何挑戰，並把維多等角色所呈現的自我擺放至德希達的解構框架中，一一點出其中的虛幻不實。

Although Mary Shelley echoes many of the Romantic concerns in ”Frankenstein”, she nevertheless calls into question some of the unqualified longings and confidence of her contemporaries. Among the convictions that she challenged are those of self, imagination, and the fundamental innocence of human nature, and self in particular. Inasmuch as self, properly recognized or otherwise, is arguably a pivotal force of the whole Romantic arts, this paper attempts to suggest how in ”Frankenstein” the infinitely expanded, highly emphasized self is questioned, circumscribed, and balanced. Like language, according to the post-structuralist theory, self can be intelligible only when it is contextualized, and, like history, can be meaningful only when it is positioned in a specific spatiotemporal milieu. In what follows, we thus place within the framework of the Derridean deconstruction the selves respectively expressed by Walton, Justine, Victor, and the Creature, hoping to see how the Romantic self represented by such poets as Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, and Byron is revised.

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