摘要

此篇論文之要旨在於探討愛倫坡恐怖故事中似是而非、難以捉摸的特質；它們正是構成故事之中顛覆力量的重要因素。整體而言，愛倫坡的恐怖故事已然形成一股強烈的質問力量，這力量大膽質疑著「知識論」的妥當與「存在論」的穩固。故事中的主角通常都莫可奈何地不斷游移在許多似乎無法並容卻又彼此互補的兩極樣態之間──「連續性/間斷性」、「踰越/禁忌」、「情色主義/唯我主義」等等。由於這無法避免的游移，他們必須時時面對、等候著超乎言說系統的「永恆迫近」；而這一永遠延宕的「迫近」也正意味著「知識論」主張的無效和耗損。愛倫坡的「游移辯證」不但謳歌著人類意圖逃脫知識系統建制的慾望，也同時以詭譎、變形的方式將人類對於身份定位的焦慮牽引出來。對於這些故事中游移的主角而言，身份確立的焦慮實來自於存在本身的迷離與吊詭；「存有」變得「流質化」、「游離化」，宛若一座包含無限錯誤出口的迷宮，而每個出口都導向另一座奇幻的迷宮。想要找到真正出口的念頭只能帶來一連串錯誤的定位。
論文的導論介紹愛倫坡在文學史上引人爭辯的地位，並藉此重新評鑑其恐怖故事的思想內涵。愛倫坡恐怖故事過人之處在於意識形態上的大膽與前衛；透過詭異多變的敘述技巧，它們毫不避諱地披露人心底層受壓抑的恐懼以及對死亡的焦慮。而愛倫坡自覺式的論述技法決非一般恐怖小說家所能比擬，是恐怖小說的一大創新。第一章引介法國思想家巴岱爾的基本理論架構，並嘗試以其連續性/間斷性之辯證關係檢視愛倫坡的兩個詭異故事。常在愛倫坡故事中出現的「深淵情節」在此與上述的辯證關係，以及故事中揮之不去的漩渦意象環環相扣，交織成此章的論述中心。第二章探討三個恐怖故事中「禁忌」與「踰越」相互依存、交相感染的特殊現象。這些故事中的殺人事實皆具有濃烈的寓言意味，旨在傳達人類渴求永遠擺脫禁忌束縛的踰越大夢。而殺人者在故事中皆不自覺地想透過殺人此一管道以求抒發、移轉本身的自毀原慾。第三章則處理兩個「變體」故事中「身份認定焦慮」的問題。在第一個故事「摩蕾拉」裏，主角的潛藏焦慮表現在他無法與其妻共享情慾融合的排拒態度上。然而此種「唯我主義」卻一再被摩蕾拉「自我情慾」式的轉世威脅著。而在「萊吉雅」裏面，主角的身份焦慮則投射於亡妻萊吉雅與現任妻子蘿溫娜所形成的詭變「合成體」身上。諷刺的是，主角對於融合的孺慕之情也只能透過此一酷異的「合成體」而獲得一種扭曲的「連續性」。在總結中，我再次強調愛倫坡恐怖故事中不時浮現難以停歇的「游移辯證」以及迷離吊詭的「永恆迫近」。在維持知覺清醒的前題下，主體必須尋求與禁忌﹝構成主體性的一大要素﹞達成某種程度的妥協，於是意圖永遠超脫主體限制的慾望最終也只能延宕著，在游移與迫近中摸索自我質疑的存有。

Abstract

As a whole, Poe’s tales of terror are highly subversive in nature: they call into question epistemological validity and ontological stability. The protagonists of the tales generally find themselves thrown into an unspeakable state of “perpetual imminence,” slipping ceaselessly between two poles—what Bataille calls “continuity” and “discontinuity,” the subject’s move toward disintegration into the larger life-and-death totality, and its reactive move back toward the “discontinuity” of integrated subjectivity. This epistemological “exhaustion” can also be seen in terms of transgression/taboo, or eroticism/solipsism. To know, then, becomes an impossibility: the desire to know must end in its ultimate form as “communication” (of/through “continuity”), which simultaneously calls for the decomposition of the “knowing” subject and the escape from the chains of the signifying system.
In Poe’s slipping dialectics which permeates his tales of terror, non-signification (the unnameable) is celebrated while identity anxiety is brought to the fore in grotesque and contorted forms. Caught between, the “slipping” protagonists have no way to hold firmly onto their presumed identities (ontologically as well as culturally). Existence itself becomes fluid and labyrinthine, ruptured by numerous ontological/epistemological “openings.” If anything, human life in these tales is presented as a labyrinth with countless misleading exits, each of which opens into another haunting labyrinth. Nevertheless, the unsignifiable “communication”—the ultimate desire for self-annihilation—remains tempting and imminent as an Object of Desire. But it emerges as something like an abyss—while the protagonists are lured by the urge to fling themselves down, they are always held back by the re-emerging sense of subjectivity.
Chapter One gives a terse introduction of Georges Bataille’s theoretical structure and then examines two “vortex” tales in the light of Bataille’s subtle dialectics of “continuity” and “discontinuity.” Vortices are seen as the slide into “continuity,” with which the protagonists wish to be integrated so as to cross beyond or through their ontological closures. But the horror called forth by this desire for excess drives them to “close themselves in” again, either by seeking to survive or creating an enclosed “textual subjectivity.” Chapter Two focuses on the inter-contamination of transgression and taboo in three “transgressive” tales. Like the elusive dialectics of “continuity” and “discontinuity,” the relationship between transgression and taboo is both ambivalent and complementary. In each tale, the protagonist cannot commit transgressive acts without being strangely haunted by the inner censorship of the taboo. Having transgressed or validated the taboo in the hope of attaining the “sacred I,” he always has to slip back into the “tabooed I.” Chapter Three explores the identity anxiety implicit in “Morella” and “Ligeia.” In the former tale, this anxiety is shown in the protagonist’s rejection of erotic involvement with his wife Morella. The cause of this repudiation rests in his unconscious aspiration to keep intact his solipsistic subjectivity, since eroticism—the merging of two separate beings—requires the radical self-questioning of one’s identity. But this idealistic desire is deflated by the uncanny revenge of Morella’s “auto-erotic” transmigration. In “Ligeia,” identity anxiety takes shape in the murky composite of Ligeia and Rowena, the collapsing fusion of one entity with another. The protagonist’s self-contradictory longing for “continuity” can only find expression in the projection of his identity onto Rowena.

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