| Abstract: | This paper aims to analyze the politics of Harriet Jacobs's representation in her slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. While Jacobs adopts the rhetoric of sympathy, popular in early nineteenth-century American sentimental and domestic novels, it is important to note that there is a tendency in Jacobs's narrative to resist sympathy, which tends to obliterate the difference of the suffering other, to expose the suffering other under the public gaze, and to deprive the other of privacy and agency. In a word, in the operation of sympathy, the suffering other has neither authority nor subjectivity to determine his/her life. My analysis of Jacobs's representation of her experience of being abused under slavery seeks to demonstrate how Jacobs reclaims her difference, puts emphasis on the authority of her experience, and proposes a different view on sympathy that would allow the suffering other a certain degree of privacy and agency. More specifically, rather than constructing imaginary identification between the sympathizer and the suffering other, Jacobs highlights the difference of her experience, so as to claim her authority; also, by delineating the moments of silence, adopting the language of motherhood, and deploying the trope of veiling, Jacobs shows a strong desire not to be present, heard, and seen, which revolts against the logic of sympathy, that is, to have the suffering other displayed in the scene of sufferings.
本文旨在分析哈麗葉•傑克普斯所撰寫之奴隸自述《一個奴隸女孩的經歷》，其書寫的再現策略。雖然傑克普斯採用十九世紀情感小說與居家小說常用的同情修辭，卻不能忽略傑克普斯的書寫中一股抗拒同情的傾向，主因在於：同情受難他者之時，他者的差異往往被消弭，而在同情的公眾目光之中，受難的他者毫無保留地遭到暴露，以致於毫無隱私與自主性可言。換句話說，同情的運作中，受難的他者既沒有權威也沒有主體性來決定自身的生活。本文分析傑克普斯如何呈現自身於奴隸制度底下遭受侵害的經驗，傑克普斯的書寫呈現他者如何重申差異、強調「經驗」作爲一種權威來源、主張另一種同情的觀點，容許受難的他者一點隱私與自主性。更明確地說，傑克普斯強調自身「經驗」的差異性，而非建構同情者與受難者之間一種想像的認同關係，藉由強調差異，傑克普斯才能主張自身書寫的權威。同時，本文也將分析藉由刻畫沈默的片刻與母親的角色，並挪用面紗的比喻，傑克普斯透露出強烈的慾望，希望能夠不出現、不被聽見、不被看見，而這慾望恰恰違背了同情的邏輯，亦即將受難者展示於苦難的情境之中。 |
