新世紀的喬伊斯：政治、文本、倫理─感官新樂園：從《尤利西斯》看身體政治與慾望經濟

Abstract

筆者九○年度之計劃「感官新樂園：從《尤利西斯》看身體政治與慾望 經濟（II-I）」係以性別、身體與慾望為研究之重點，企圖跳脫以往由性 別越界或陰性書寫的可能性來探討喬伊斯是否為男性沙文主義者的思維 模式，以書中充斥的感官經驗與身體性的描寫重新切入身體政治、性別 文化與慾望經濟的問題。計畫中探討了布盧姆對性的退卻以及因此而不 得滿足的慾望如何反應在他的行為模式之中，又如何影響了他對女性的 看法。由於在布盧姆與女性的互動中，時而出現他為不同目的而致贈禮 物的行為，而「贈予」在布盧姆的一天之中又佔有極重要的比例，九一 年度之研究計畫「感官新樂園：從《尤利西斯》看身體政治與慾望經濟 （II-II）」因此著力於慾望經濟的探討，分析《尤利西斯》中所充斥的贈 予行為如何不但涉及禮物經濟，更關乎慾望經濟的運作。以布盧姆為例， 他贈予妻子、女傭、筆友、斯蒂芬、老友遺孤等不同對象之禮物，皆包 含了不同的慾望投注，可以幫助我們進一步理解在哪些情況下我們特別 會被慾望驅動，展開贈予的行為，以及禮物的選擇如何反映了送禮者對 自己與受禮者雙方的身份想像，又如何進一步形塑兩者的慾望互動。本 計畫探究了《尤利西斯》慾望經濟與禮物經濟的相關性，並藉以思考當 代主體自身慾望運作、贈予及消費行為的糾葛。

The circular path of giving-in-order-to-get-back revealed by Joyce’s texts, to a certain extent, justifies what Jacques Derrida has said on gifts: the simple intention to give suffices to annul the very concept of the gift, for the donor’s intention to pay himself with symbolic recognition, to praise himself, to approve of himself, to gratify himself with some sort of symbolic equivalent, has already defied the spirit of the gift, which is not supposed to get anything in return. The gift economy laid bare by Joyce is also in tune with Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of gift exchange; namely, it is the collectively maintained and approved self-deception that makes us assume gifts as free from any ulterior motives. Instead of using Joyce’s texts to demonstrate the cogency of Derrida and Bourdieu’s theories, my project probes into the gift economy Joyce presents from the following aspects: If the gift is “the impossible” for Derrida as it always returns something to the donor rather than reaches the donee in a unilateral way, does Joyce’s gift economy imply similar ideas? If Joyce’s texts deconstruct the gift economy by showing how it is far from being disinterested, has Joyce offered any reason to account for the calculative dimension of gift-giving? Moreover, if the circular structure of economy necessitates the return of the gift to its donor, does the gift always reach this destination and thus nullify itself? According to my exploration, I find that Joyce has not demolished the gift economy altogether by comparing gift-giving to self-congratulatory beneficence or usurious calculation of advantage, for he depicts Leopold Bloom as one who is willing to help the needy, one who generously spends the majority of his money on gifts during the Bloomsday. Though Bloom’s acts of giving are not free of self-interest, Joyce’s presentation of the gift economy does not so much frustrate our expectation of genuine generosity as enables us to recognize the reason why gifts can hardly be disinterested: it is because the gift is invested with the donor’s desire, specifically the desire to redraw the boundaries between the recipient and himself that the act of giving is not immune from calculation. As Mary Douglas suggests, “if we persist in thinking that gifts ought to be free and pure, we will always fail to recognize our own grand cycles of exchanges, which categories get to be included and which get to be excluded from our hospitality.” In other words, more profound insights into calculation and generosity can be expected if we penetrate how the motion of the gift economy is affected and even propelled by the economy of desire. Thus, in addition to laying bare how the gift economy presented by Joyce is far from being disinterested, my project dwells on the relation between gift-giving and desire so as to grasp the intricate mechanism of the intersubjective economy.