＂Whom do you believe, your eyes or my words?＂: Re-Reading Disabled Subject in Melville from a Zizekian Perspective

你到底相信誰？你的眼睛？還是我的話？」：從齊傑克觀點重讀梅爾維爾的失能主體

10.7060/KNUJ-HA.201212.0063

王曉慧(Hiu-Wai Wong)

象徵身份 ； 齊傑克 ； 失能 ； 亞哈 ； 象徵層假面號令 ； symbolic identity ； Žižek ； disability ； Ahab ； symbolic mask-mandate

高雄師大學報：人文與藝術類

33期（2012 / 12 / 01）

63 - 81

英文

不少失能研究的學者認為赫爾曼•梅爾維爾對失能角色亞哈之再現已多有貢獻，但對其描繪有過度本質化及化約的傾向。筆者認為可使用齊傑克的象徵層理論對之做出更近一步的研究。齊傑克指出已奠定的主體概念中，充滿了象徵層編織的多重謊言，由此可見亞哈看似靜態的截肢形象其實尚有可討論之處。建立在學者大衛•米其爾和樂絲瑪莉•格蘭湯生的探討之上，可更深化探究史巴克和史達等船員如何對失能者產生偏見，和亞哈本人又是如何無法自制地被這種偏見左右。而關於截肢角色的典型形象，在這裡齊傑克象徵層假面號令的概念，可作為一有意義的架構，幫助我們深化對於失能主體與關於失能的偏頗論述間衝突的分析，這些分析過去失能研究學者雖已展開卻未完成。從齊傑克的觀點來看，轉變成為失能主體，置亞哈於巨大的磨難中，因為他不只在身體上有了創傷，同時在象徵層則是船長的位置上受到威脅，在這樣的狀況下，大寫他深具影響力但卻固執不變的特性，因此這必須是一個探討的重點。就大寫他者而言，齊傑克象徵身份的理論讓我們透視象徵層建構物固執而盲目的特性，那有助於我們看清楚亞哈和船員間的衝突，也就是被象徵層排斥的失能主體及受到象徵層掌控的一般主體間的對立。當脆弱的象徵層謊言被揭穿，我們當可了解現實與象徵層間的不一致性。

Some proponents of disability studies consider Herman Melville's portrayal of the disabled character of Ahab as essentializing and reductive. Despite the contribution that scholars of disability studies have made to the investigation of Melville's representation of the maimed captain, I would argue that one can expand the discussion by drawing on Slavoj Žižek's theory on the symbolic. Following Žižek's criticism on the symbolic fabrication of manifold lies about the established notion of the subject, there are much more to be found concerning Ahab's seemingly static image of amputation. Building on the discussions of David Mitchell and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, one can explore how such crewmates as Starbuck and Stubb become bigoted about the disabled, as well as how Ahab himself is helplessly influenced by this bigotry. As for the stereotype image of the amputated man, Slavoj Žižek's notion of the symbolic mask-mandate serves as a meaningful framework to help us deepen the analysis of the conflict between the disabled subject and the bigoted discourse of disability, which has been done but not yet finished by proponents of disability studies. From a Žižekian perspective, becoming a disabled subject puts Ahab in great affliction, since he is not only wounded physically, but is threatened symbolically in terms of his position as captain. The influential but fixed nature of the big Other should therefore be discussed. In terms of the big Other, Žižek's theory of symbolic identity lets us see through the rigid and blind nature of symbolic construction, and therefore helps us understand the conflicts between Ahab, the disabled subject excluded from the symbolic, and his crewmen, the abled subjects subordinated to the symbolic. After uncovering the weakness of the symbolic lies, one will understand the incongruity between reality and the symbolic discourse.

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