“It Was Self-defense, and That Would be All Right”: The Problematization of Innocence in Ian McEwan’s The Innocent

「當時那是自衛，故無妨」：在伊恩․麥克尤恩的《無辜者》中「無罪」概念之問題化

林欣瑩(Hsin-Ying Lin)

伊恩․麥克尤恩 ； 《無辜者》 ； 冷戰 ； 柏林圍牆 ； 道德 ； Ian McEwan ； The Innocent ； the Cold War ； the Berlin Wall ； morality

高雄師大學報：人文與藝術類

39期（2015 / 12 / 01）

131 - 149

英文

伊恩․麥克尤恩在他的歴史小說《無辜者》中，對於第二次世界大戰後的英美聯軍和蘇德聯軍的國際關係，提供了一些觀察和洞見。此小說描述東西德政治分裂前與柏林圍牆(1961-89)拆除後的這段時期，國際聯盟勢力間彼此不信任的情形與詭譎多變的國際關係。本論文聚焦於主人翁李歐那(Leonard)如何合理化自己的「自衛」暴力，並且闡明此「自衛」暴力，不僅只是出自於主人翁個人的習性，同時也是反應一九五零年代中期，第二次世界大戰後之國際間邪惡的文化氛圍，尤其探討戰後時期的國際間的各國家勢力，如何以愛國主義為由，來合理化自家的猜疑與暴力。本論文最後提出一些思考「遺忘」的道德問題與觀察，且這些觀察皆與此本小說中內蘊以「自衛」為由，並「刻意遺忘」自己的暴力行為，進而欺騙自己「無辜」概念的言說有密切關係。本論文企圖檢視以下的問題：我們正在談論的是誰的邪惡？我們所關注的是邪惡的統治者，抑或被邪惡統治的人們？換句話說，我們所關注的是，無視於民意的統治者，抑或那些擅於合理化自己的暴力，但卻受制於自己內心邪惡的人們？

With the publication of his historical novel The Innocent (1990), Ian McEwan offers several observations concerning the international relationship between British and American allied forces and Soviet and German allied forces after the Second World War. This novel depicts the untrusting and volatile relationship between these nations as a fictional but reflective account of world history before the division of Germany into West Germany and East Germany, and also after the fall of the Berlin Wall (the wall period: 1961-89). This paper aims to highlight the significance of how self-defense is justified as an excuse for individual and national violence, and further contends that this self-justified violence caused much of the cultural evil prevalent on an individual and national scale during the postwar period of the middle 1950s. This paper explores how the national power during the postwar period of the middle 1950s rationalized suspicion and violence for the sake of patriotism, particularly in social relationships, and how this violence is manifested individually through Leonard’s dismemberment of Otto’s body as an emblem of Germany’s disintegration, which highlights nation-power pairs who emerge as mutually resistant but balanced powers. This paper ultimately offers some observations, on a somewhat more speculative level, in relation to the novel’s discourse on the moral problem of painstaking forgetfulness as a form of internal violence, and thus a more critical, if interrogative, attitude towards the notion of innocence out of this painstaking forgetfulness. This criticism examines the following questions: Whose ＂evil＂ are we talking about? Are we concerned with those who govern with evil or those who are governed by evil?; in other words, with those who govern without concern for the consent of the governed, or those who circulate this justified violence but remain landlocked by the evil?

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