出刊年月/Date of Publishing

1998.12

所屬卷期/Vol. & No.   第28卷第4期 Vol. 28, No. 4

類型/Type                 研究論文 Research Article

篇名/Title
“Good Reasons for Not Laughing”: Humor as Violence in Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts
不笑有理：《寂寞芳心小娘》中的幽默暴力

作者/Author
曾安國 An-Kuo Tseng

頁碼/Pagination
pp. 173-213

摘要
論文旨在詮釋韋斯特《寂寞芳心小姐》裡的現代荒誕譎怪的特質，針對這位三○年代崛起的美國作家，如何在情節中寓暴力於幽默，進行剖析。論文分三部分來探討其中環環相扣的問題。第一部分旨在檢視笑和恐懼、厭惡、驚駭在這部小說中奇特的結合：那種看似與笑相對立的反應反而正是激發並強化笑的反應。第二部分探究暴力 (或驚駭) 式的幽默所隱含的性別模式：暴力的受害者通常是女性，暴力的性質屬於性侵害，而笑的始作俑者及旁觀者則通常是男性。就這方面而言，《寂寞芳心小姐》特別之處在於既確認上述的性別模式，同時也瓦解這種男性圈內的嘻笑所賴以成立的模式，這種將抗拒發笑內存於引起發笑的漸進式分離現象，是《寂寞芳心小姐》所呈現的第三個也是最後一個問題。本文的第三部分，僅就閱讀進展時時間的先後順序來探討《寂寞芳心小姐》裡，所呈現出來的不安且深具罪惡感的嘻笑。

Abstract
As a representative text in the emergence of a "modern grotesque," Miss Lonelyhearts raises several interlocking problems. First, it forces us to examine laughter's curious alliance with horror, disgust, and alarm. Though these responses would seem to oppose laughter, Miss Lonelyhearts continually enlists them to provoke and intensify it. A second and related problem concerns the rules of gender in this violent or alarming humor. The victims of grotesque violence are usually female, the violence itself is typically sexual in nature, and the laughing onlookers as well as the perpetrators of this violence are usually male. Miss Lonelyhearts is a particularly interesting text in this regard, for while it exploits the linkages between male humor and sexual violence, it also encourages our progressive dissociation from that circuit. What emerges is not only a brutal comic arrangement but a guiltier mode of violent male laughter. This built-in resistance to the very laughter it provokes will be examined in the third section of this paper, mainly in relation to the temporality of reading.

關鍵字/Key Word
韋斯特、《寂寞芳心小姐》、怪誕、滑稽、幽默
West, Miss Lonelyhearts, grotesque, comic, humor

DOI
--

學門分類/Subject
文學 Literature