从拉康的镜像原理分析藻海无边的女主人公论文.doc

An Analysis the Heroine of Wide Sargasso Sea from the Perspective of Lacans Mirror Stage摘要1966 年出版的藻海无边作为对简爱内容的颠覆登上了文学舞台。简里斯把伯莎梅森从简爱中的阁楼里成功的拯救出来，把她从文本边缘的他者变成了文本中心的自我。简里斯在藻海无边中改写了夏洛蒂勃朗特名著简爱中疯女人伯莎梅森的形象。小说发表之后受到不同评论观点的关注，其中有些强调它的女性主义特征，有些关注它对殖民主义与种族政治的体现。然而，较少研究集中分析女主人公的身份，本文以此为契机，引用拉康的镜像原理来分析女主人公安托瓦内特的身份意识与自我认同，以及镜像在安托瓦内特身份构建中所起的作用。这篇论文是对在藻海无边研究的初次尝试，也希望对琼里斯的相关研究能够有所补充或者对后来的研究者提供借鉴。关键词：镜像原理，藻海无边，身份构建，自我认同AbstractWide Sargasso Sea published in 1966. It is a reversal of Jane Eyre in literary world. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Bertha Mason were rescued from the garret by Jean Rhys and is turned from the other on the margin into the self in the text. Jean Rhys rewrites the image of the mad woman Bertha Mason from Charlotte Bront s Jane Eyre.The novel has been the object of different critical reading since its publication, some emphasizing its feminist vindication, some stressing its representation of colonialism and racial politics. However, there have some study on the heroines identity and this thesis tries to analyze Antoinettes self-identity and identity consciousness by applying Lacans Mirror Stage, and Lacans Mirror Stage have an influence on Antoinettes identity construction.The paper is an achievement of the writer,.The writer try to do some meaningful research on novels. Furthermore, we hope it could be a significant complement for the existed studies of the novel and the experience of it can be used for future researchers.Key Words: Mirror Stage, Wide Sargasso Sea, identity construction I Introduction In Jean Rhys writings, her Dominican background and her life experience in England and Caribbean play an important role. Jean Rhys to receive education at a convent school in Roseau,when she was a little girl. The religious education in the convent school has an deeply influenced her . Jean Rhys was also influenced by her black servants. Those black servants raised her and introduced to her the language, customs and religious beliefs of the native Caribbean. At that time, she wanted to be a black, which later reflected in her famous writing Wide Sargasso Sea. Many critics laid stress on the novels relationship with Jane Eyre. For them, the creation was clearly inspired by Charlotte Bront s madwoman in the attic. Jean Rhys express herselfs feeling after she read Jane Eyre: “Shes necessary to the action, but always she shrieks, howls, laughs horribly and attacks all people off stage. For me, she must be rhetoric with a past.” But the novel is not just a prequel but also Rhys own creation. Rhys deals with the oppositions between white and black, between masculine and feminine and between self and other. Psychoanalytical criticism was also applied to study the novel. Some critics think that the novel centers on Antoinettes quest for her identity. A lot of studies research Jean Rhys and her Wide Sargasso Sea also have been done in China in recent years. Some tries to study the post-colonialism connotation of this novel. Others analyze the relationship between women and nature in Wide Sargasso Sea from the perspective of eco-feminism. And the symbolism in Wide Sargasso Sea is explored by Chen Yuhuan; she tries to explain the theme of the novel through the analysis of the symbols and sexual relations to explore the heroines personalities and the reasons for her madness. As is described above, critics have already studied the novel from different perspectives, but there is still blank to do further research on it.Based on the principle of lacans mirror stage analysis the heroine of Wide Sargasso Sea , this is a new attempt.Application of the Lacans mirror stage explore the novel frequently mirror that builded in the role of the hostess Antoinettes identity construction.Through the heroine and other characters in the novel mirror relationship formation, to express the heroine secret identity and the heroines self-pursuit of identity.II Background information 2.1 A brief introduction to Jean Rhys and Wild Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys was born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams on the Westward Island of Dominica in the Caribbean, in 1890. Jean Rhys father was a Welsh doctor; her mother was a third-generation Dominican Creoles of Scottish ancestry. In 1924, Jean Rhys began to live with Ford and his Australian wife Stella Bowen. At that time, Rhys lived a very hard life. Stella describe Rhys as a really tragic person. Jean was placed on the edge of society. She suffered poverty, illness and alcoholism. In 1927,Rhys is encouraged by Ford, she published her first collection of stories called The Left Bank, taking the penname Jean Rhys. Later, in 1928, Postures (issued in America as Quartet) appeared. It is Rhys first four novels ,which mirror her own life. In 1966, Rhys made a immense reappearance with Wide Sargasso Sea. This time, Rhys became famous .The resaon is that she won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the W. H. Smith Award with Wide Sargasso Sea. Her novels were republished by Penguin. In 1979, Jean Rhys died at the age of eighty-nine in Devonshire, England. In 1974, A. Alvarez wrote in The Best Living English Novelists, To my mind, she is, quite simply, the best living English novelist. 2.2 Introduction to Lacans Mirror Stage Lacan ( Jacques-Marie Emile Lacan 1901 - 1983 ) is the well-known French contemporary psychoanalyst and the magic original ideologist. In 1936, Lacan proposes the mirror theory . It is his subversive idea in Freuds spiritual analysis which advocated by the psychological and personality construction of historical logic. The mirror theory is the key part of Lacans early thoughts, this article briefly discuss philosophy logic of Lacans mirror theory.From a philosophical part, identity is the identity, Identity is to find the foundation of personal survival, the reason why I am I. Lacan thinks that a persons identity, the unified self consciousness is first established by the mirror. The baby stares at its image in the mirror, and gradually establish the image of its own, so it establish its self-identity. Lacan called this stage the mirror stage . To the large extend, it not only refers to the infancy self-image in the mirror image, but also refer to the adults image in others eyes. Self identity is constantly contacted with the others, the others gaze. Therefore, the establishment of the identity is closely related to the image in the mirror.这段文字是汉语翻译的。III .Lacans Mirror Stage and Antoinette According to Lacan, the fictitious order is the fundamental self-love by which the human subject creates fantasy images of both himself and his ideal object of desire. The imaginary order is closely tied to Lacans theorization of the mirror stage.The idea of the mirror stage is an important early component in Lacans critical reinterpretation of the work of Freud. In Wide Sargasso Sea, the heroine Antoinette tries to identify herself with her mirror images and even tries to set up the self in the others discourse. Living in marginal society, it is difficult for Antoinette to build up a stable self-identity.Under the stimuli, she goes into madness. 3.1The mirror stage between Antoinette and others 3.1.1 Antoinette with his mother Annette In mirror stage, mother is the first and the most important role in Antoinettes self-construction. When she is a little child, mother is the first “mirror” and “the other” in his or her life. In Wide Sargasso Sea, the method of mirror relates the miserable fate of Antoinette with her mothers suffering; Annette is a mirror for Antoinette. Firstly, readers can see from the novel that Antoinette has the similar name and appearance features with her mother. On the way to the convent, the black girl said: “look the crazy girl, you crazy like your mother. she have eyes like zombie and you have eyes like zombie too” After she grows up, Antoinette has long, black hair and tall, slim figure, and she likes dancing and holy, white skirts just like her mother. Secondly, both of them marry white Englishmen. Antoinette even be renamed by her husband according to her own mothers name. “Dont laugh like that, Bertha.” “My name is not Bertha; why do you call me Bertha” “Because it is a name Im particularly fond of. I think of you as Bertha.” “It doesnt matter” she said. From the dialogue, we can see Rochester renames his wife with the name of his mother-in-law (Annette), which shows that he has found there are some similarities between Antoinette and her mother. Finally, Antoinette has the same tragic ending with her mother: both of them are confined to a“madwoman”. So, in some extent, Antoinettes mother is an exact mirror of Antoinette. But Antoinettes mother doesnt care her. Annette, the mother of the female protagonist, doesnt need her daughter all the time whereas as a daughter, Antoinette cant get warmth and love from her own mother. So the mirror from the mother is a kind of failure.3.1.2Antoinette with black people that live in manorThe heroine Antoinette and the Negroes inhabiting around Coulibri plantation constitute mirror images to each other. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette, the female heroine seeks her racial identity in her painful life all the time. At the beginning of the story, Antoinette feels her identity dilemma:“They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks.”Antoinette is brought up in a British family, but she belongs to a white Creole because she was born on the West Indies islands. As a daughter of a slaveholder, Antoinette is rejected and regarded as an enemy by the black the black call her: “White Cockroach”.while the white call her: “White Nigger” because she is a Creole. Such a impasse makes Antoinette despised by whites and blacks Antoinette does not belong to the rich Englishmen, or to the local slaves who are free after the emancipation. So her disregarded social status is one of the reasons to make her unable identity the self and lose her mind eventually. Growing up in a black group (except his family members, others in her life are almost negroes such as her nanny- Christophine, Godfrey, Sass, and her only childhood pal-Tia). Being raised by her black nanny- Christophine, Antoinette has subconsciously attributed to the black group from the psychological aspect but racial difference is a great alienation between Antoinette and the black. “One day, a little girl followed me singing: “Go away white cockroach, go away, go away I walked fast, but she walked faster. “White cockroach, go away, go away, Nobody want you. Go away.” According to Lacan, the symbolic order is the social world of linguistic communication, intersubjective relations, knowledge of ideological conventions, and the acceptance of the law. Just as Eagleton says: “Language is built up on the basis of absence and deficiency”. In West Indies, in such a multi-racial society, “White cockroach” means a kind of exclusion from the black world. At that time, she realized that she is a white ghost in the eyes of the black. Christophine is kind, she finds the black girl Tia, to be her childhood pal to comfort her. As Antoinette admitted : Soon Tia was my friend and I met her nearly every morning at the turn of the road to the river. From this sentence, readers would have such sympathy that there maybe an equal and hopeful friendship developing between people coming from two different classes and racial backgrounds. But it seems that such recognition is just more than a one-sided hopeful thought on Antoinettes part. Although they get along very well at first, their friendship is still divided because of the difference of color. In a word, to some of intersubjective relations and knowledge of ideological conventions, Antoinette fails to build up her self identity with the black.3.1.3Anitoinette with his husband Rochester For lack of the maternal passion and caring in ones critical period, Antoinette turns to her husband (Rochester), the person she is expected to have the closest association with for comfort and warmth. But she loses the self again in the marriage with Rochester. During the relationship between Antoinette and Rochester, she becomes his victim.Rochester marries Antoinette not for love but for her property. He knows distinctly that he doesnt love her at all.At first, he cheats Antoinette with his promise to give her pleasure and safety. But he totally becomes another person after he gets the property which can ensure his position. He doesnt trust her and refuse to listen to her explanation. Finally he imprisons her in Thornfield Hall as a mad woman. In such a marriage, love doesnt exist. Antoinette is traded into this marriage as an object which can give Rochester benefits. After Antoinette enters the marriage unwillingly, she becomes a slave to Rochester. She trusts him and tells him things about herself that she has told no one else. But Rochester turns his indifference into opposition to Antoinette. In fact, although he makes the promise to Antoinette and gains trust from her, he is the first to break his word. Antoinette once says that Is it true that England is like a dream? Because one of my friends who married an Englishman wrote and told me so. She said this place London is like a cold dark dream sometimes. I want to wake up. She is lonely and hopeless. The result is apparent. It caused her self-destructive personality, which is the same as her mothers fate. Readers still recall what Christophine says about Antoinettes mothers suffering. The marriage removes her of freedom and independence. It is the marriage which contributes to the destruction of the female. In Lacans view, as a female, her Oedipus complex deprives her of direct access to the maternal body, and a positive evaluation of her sexuality and identity. It erases her potential as an active lover, situating her in a passive position as the love object of an enthusiastic, phallic male lover. Living in a post-emancipation society, disregarded and colonized, the female character in Wide Sargasso Sea is viewed as a puppet. Antoinette, called by Rochester as “marionette”, suffers financial, physical and spiritual oppression from male. All these oppression makes her a miserable puppet. 3.2 Anitoinette self-identity and the Perspective of Lacans Mirror Stage Identity recognition means to look for the basis of ones existence, i.e. the reasonwhy I can be myself. In Lacans view, ones self identity recognition or ones whole self consciousnes is set up through the mirror stage. A newborn gradually gets to know the image in the mirror is itself when it stares at the mirror image, and then it sets up the self recognition in its mind. Lacan names the phase as mirror stage. In Mirror stage, the subject not only identifies itself with the mirror image but also identifies itself with image desired by others when it enters the realm of language. Our identities are formed after we enter into the language world when we contact with others. Therefore, self identity connects with the mirror stage and the others discourse. In the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, the heroine Antoinette tries to identify herself with her mirror images and even tries to set up the self in the others discourse. Living in periphery society, Antoinette finds it is difficult to build up a stable self-identity. Under the stimuli, she retreats into madness. Until the end of the novel, she finally reshapes the self by the reunion with her child friend Tia, who embodies her past history. 3.2.1 The Making of self In Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette, the female heroine seeks her racial identity in her bitter life all the time. At the beginning of the story, Antoinette feels her identity dilemma:“They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks.” First, it tells the self from the other, i.e. we and they, the white Creoles are not compatible with the whites.It gives a hint to the antagonism and incomprehension between Antoinette and her husband- an Englishman. Second, it also indicates that the heroines identity is founded in a negative way. Who I am is established on that who I am not. While who I am not is also founded on the desire of the others towards me and the introspection of the desire. Therefore, the novel is full of complicated reflections and images. Antoinette tries to identify herself with the blacks or the whites, but in the blacks eyes, she is a white nigger; in the whites eyes, she is a white cockroach. She is hardly to find the self in two cultures. Not only can she identify the self in reflected mirror images, but also she is renamed. According to Lacan, a subjects identity recognition depends on the others discourse when it enters into the realm of language. At first, the self Antoinette tries to set up is not stable. Then she loses the self. She is gradually driven to madness. Through the analysis, we can find that the identity of Antoinette is an unsolved problem all through the novel. Living in the West Indian society with the liberated ex-slaves, Antoinette lives in marginalized circumstances. She is neither a slave owner nor an enslaved person. So she is neither a host, nor a slave, but she connects with both of them. She is a White Creole, and a product of European whites and the aboriginal blacks. On the one hand, she goes between the cultures of whites and blacks; on the other hand, she is despised by both. Antoinette does not belong to the rich Englishmen, or to the local slaves who are free after the liberation. So her marginalized social status is one of the reasons to make her unable identify the self and lose her mind eventually. 3.2.2 Dream imagesIn Freuds view, unconsciousness is in confusion. It is the instinct that has nothing to do