洩密的故事：馬汀麥當納《枕頭人》中的「說故事」與「自我欺騙」 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文. 指導教授：姜翠芬教授 Advisor：Professor Tsui-fen Jiang. 政治大馬汀麥當納《枕頭人》中的「說故事」與「自我欺騙」立洩密的故事：. ‧ 國. 學. The Tell-Tale Tale:. Storytelling and Self-Deception in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. 研究生：何曉芙撰 Name：Hsiao-fu Ho 中華民國一百年七月 July, 2011. v.

(2) The Tell-Tale Tale: Storytelling and Self-Deception in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. A Master Thesis Presented to Department of English,. National Chengchi University. 學 ‧. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Hsiao-fu Ho 2011.

(3) To my parents and my family 獻給我的父母及家人. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iii. i n U. v.

(4) Acknowledgement This thesis owes its completion to the assistance of many people. First and foremost, I am deeply indebted to my dear advisor, Dr. Tsui-fen Jiang, who has supported me throughout the writing of my thesis with her patience and knowledge while allowing me the room to work in my own way. She is also the first teacher who enlightens me to explore the world of western drama. Without her encouragement and instruction, this thesis would not have been completed or written. I would also like to convey my gratitude to my committee members, Dr. Chienchi Liu, of Shih Hsin University, Dr. Yin-i Chen, of National Chengchi University, and Dr. Yen-bin Chiou, of Chengchi University for reading this thesis and digging out many beneficial and important questions and suggestions for me to further think over.. 政治大. In addition, I am very grateful to the teachers who have taught me in the Department of English in Chengchi University. The education I have received during these years, including the four-year college life and three-year academic training striving for the Master degree, has nurtured me to become a self-confident person.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. ‧. I am much obliged to my family, especially to my parents and my younger brother. My parents have supported and encouraged me to study English literature since I was a senior high school student. They have always expressed their full trust in every decision I have made. They are the pillars of my life. My brother helped me to borrow many books from the library of National Taiwan University during these years. Thank you. Please remind me of returning all the books.. io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. Also, I would like to thank all my dear friends who always trust me when I doubt myself. Their encouragements gave me a great sense of uplift. Special thanks go to my classmates, Benny, Alice, Nika, Violette, and Clara. They have not only given me spiritual supports, but also provided many academic suggestions and comments for me to improve my arguments and writing. Thank you.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Last but not least, I would like to thank Godot Theatre Company and all of the friends I made acquaintance during the one-year working experience and the two-year volunteer experience. You have enriched my life, helping me to realize that there are various ways to lead my life. Studying literature and drama is interesting, but studying the real life is more fascinating. This page cannot cover all my gratitude. Thank you and love you all. All of you contribute to part of this thesis, and part of me.. iv.

(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS. Acknowledgement……………………………………………………………… iv Chinese Abstract………………………………………………………………... vi English Abstract………………………………………………………………… vii Chapter 1 Introduction: The Pillowman and Storytelling.................................... 01. 1.1 Introduction................................................................................................. 01. 1.2 About the Author........................................................................................ 02. 1.3 Plot Summary of The Pillowman................................................................ 07. 1.4 Theater Review and Literature Review ..................................................... 08 1.5 Thesis Argument......................................................................................... 11. 政治大 1.7 Chapter Organization................................................................................. 立 Chapter 2 The Storyteller and Self-Deception..................................................... 1.6 Theoretical Approach................................................................................. 16. 學. ‧ 國. 18 20 20. 2.2 Storytelling as a Means of Self-Deception……………………………..... 21. 2.3 Katurian as a Self-deceptive Storyteller in Spatialized Stories.................. 33. 2.4. Conclusion................................................................................................. 53. ‧. 2.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………. sit. y. Nat. Chapter 3 The Story-Listener and Self-Deception.............................................. 54 3.1 Introduction................................................................................................. 54. io. er. 3.2 Similarities within Transference, Transferential Relation, and Storytelling 55. al. n. iv n C 3.4 Conclusion.................................................................................................. hengchi U. 3.3 Self-Deception in Transferential Relations in The Pillowman…………… 64 90. Chapter 4 Conclusion: Self-Deception or Self-Consolation?.............................. 92 Works Cited.......................................................................................................... 99. v.

(6) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文提要論文名稱：洩密的故事：馬汀麥當納《枕頭人》中的「說故事」與「自我欺騙」指導教授：姜翠芬教授研究生：何曉芙論文提要內容：本論文分析劇作家馬汀麥當納的劇本《枕頭人》中的「說故事」與「自我欺. 政治大騙」，論證「說故事」提供本劇四位主要角色自我欺騙式的慰藉，使其得以處立. ‧ 國. 學. 理創傷和逃避現實。說故事行為裡的想像和詮釋給說者及聽者. 讀者機會去重. 新建立和詮釋悲慘過去，但同時也讓他們陷入自我欺騙的狀態及真實虛幻交錯. ‧. 的混亂，因為說故事可能使他們開始否認進而承認某種身分，甚而處於特定的. y. Nat. io. sit. 故事情節結構，即使面對創傷也能獲得自我安慰。論文第二章檢視卡初利安的. n. al. er. 自我欺騙。卡初力安是劇中的主要說故事者。此章剖析他如何埋頭於自己創造. Ch. i n U. v. 的想像空間，並將過去的傷痛回憶轉化成自己能接受的故事情節。第三章剖析. engchi. 其他三位聽故事者——麥可、塔帕斯基，和艾瑞爾——的自我欺騙。此章論證聽. 讀故事亦造成自我欺騙式的安慰。這三人靠詮釋故事為創傷取得自我安慰. 的解釋，雖然此舉仍然只是對過去的自我欺騙和逃避，但讓他們可以稍微諒解過去，面對現在。說故事行為和自我欺騙深深影響劇中四位角色，並成為他們自我安慰的方法。雖然自我欺騙蒙蔽他們，使他們無視真正的現實，當他們往回看不忍卒睹的過去時，自我欺騙卻可以稍微抒解他們的傷口。. 關鍵字：說故事，自我欺騙，枕頭人 vi.

(7) Abstract This thesis analyzes storytelling and self-deception in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, contending that storytelling provides the four main characters in The Pillowman with self-deceptive relief of dealing with their traumas and evading the reality. With the potential of imagination and interpretation, storytelling not only grants storytellers and story-listeners/readers a chance to reconstruct and reinterpret their distressing past, but it also throws them in a state of self-deception and confusion. 政治大. of the interpenetration of reality and fiction when they start to disavow and avow a. 立. certain type of identity and live in a specific plot structure that can soothe themselves. ‧ 國. 學. from their traumas. Examining Katurian, the main storyteller in this play, Chapter Two of the thesis argues that as a storyteller/story-writer, Katurian falls into self-. ‧. deception which buries himself into an imaginary space he creates and which. Nat. sit. y. consoles himself by transforming those agonizing recollections into the versions he. n. al. er. io. can accept. Chapter Three tackles the other three story-listeners, Michal, Tupolski,. i n U. v. and Ariel, to argue that in a way, storytelling leads to self-deceptive relief because it. Ch. engchi. provides them with self-consoling explanations for their past to face with their present even though the three characters are trapped in their self-deception and self-evasion in the confrontation with their traumas. Thus, storytelling and self-deception deeply affect the four characters and serve as self-consolation for them. Although selfdeception blocks their eyes to see reality, it comforts them to some degrees when they look back to their past.. Key words: storytelling, self-deception, The Pillowman. vii.

(8) Chapter One Introduction: The Pillowman and Storytelling 1.1 Introduction Although the critic Brian Cliff states that The Pillowman is “so far the least widely known play” written by the London-born Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (132), it is an acclaimed one that has been widely performed in many countries.1 As the first finalization of McDonagh that was completed at almost the same time with his first well-known play The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Pillowman was not. 治政大produced by Royal National performed on the stage until November in 2003. It was 立 Theater in London and won the Laurence Olivier Award. In 2005, The Pillowman. ‧ 國. 學. opened at the Booth Theatre on Broadway on April 10. The American production. ‧. won a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best (foreign) Play and received. y. Nat. Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, as well as Tony nominations for Best Play.2. er. io. sit. As Martin McDonagh’s sixth play on the stage, 3 this play maintains McDonagh’s habitual writing style with the amalgam of comic and tragic elements. al. n. iv n C that incites the reader/the audience h to simultaneously burst e n g c h i U out laughing and have a fit. of melancholy. The theatre columnist Charles McGrath observes from the New York Booth Theater production that even though some audience scurry out in the half of the play, other viewers remain till the end, and still others “sometimes gasp with horror and sometimes shak[e] with laughter” (McGrath N. pag.). Michael C. O’Neill also mentions the mixture of the slapstick and the hideousness with “an atmosphere of 1. The international performance of The Pillowman includes the productions in Britain, Ireland, the United States, Germany, Holland, Austria, and Japan (Jordan 175). Several Asian theater troupes have also staged this play, including Ren-shin Co-ops Theater in Taiwan (2008) and Windmill Grass Theatre in Hong Kong (2010). 2 The award-winning records are based on Martin McDonagh: A Casebook, in which Richard Rankin Russell compiles in the appendix the chronology of Martin McDonagh’s life and works from 1970 to 2006. 3 Factually McDonagh finished his draft of The Pillowman in 1994, but not until the London run of The Lieutenant of Inishmore did he rework it.. 1.

(9) . Ho 2 . comic horror that explodes into violence,” which reminds him of Harold Pinter’s early “comedies of menace” (O’Neill 689). Elysa Gardner declares that The Pillowman is McDonagh’s most brutal and most tender work which “examin[es] how the redeeming and restorative powers of love and creativity can mitigate or be undone by darker impulses” (Gardner N. pag.). This thesis analyzes storytelling and self-deception in The Pillowman. With an investigation of a tale writer as the suspect of the serial murders as the foreground, this play is interwoven into many narrations of tales and life stories told by the four. 政治大. principal characters. These stories are full of multifaceted traumatic memories,. 立. including child abuse, thorny fraternal relation, and parricide. Through storytelling. ‧ 國. 學. and reading tales, the four characters are granted with the faculty of interpretation and imagination that enables them to reinterpret, reconstruct, and reorganize their. ‧. traumatic past. They treat their past like stories with plot structures which they can. Nat. sit. y. rearrange. Greatly influenced by the tales, the four characters even identify. n. al. er. io. themselves with the fictional roles of the tales and disavow their identity in reality.. i n U. v. Storytelling provides space of imagination and interpretation where the four. Ch. engchi. characters can revisit their past and give themselves consoling explanations for their sufferings. However, they do not really face with their misery or make compromises with their whirling traumatic past. This thesis argues that in The Pillowman, with the potential of imagination and interpretation, storytelling makes storytellers and storylisteners/readers fall into a state of self-deception when storytelling motivates them to disavow and avow a certain type of identity and enables them to live in a specific plot structure that can soothe themselves.. 1.2 About the Author.

(10) . Ho 3 Born into an Irish immigrant family in London with his father originated from. Galway (in Lettermullan) and his mother from Sligo (in Killeenduff), McDonagh is the second generation Irishman who was reared, educated, and socialized in the United Kingdom. After the London premiere of his touchstone The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1996, Martin McDonagh has become one of the most promising English playwrights since the late nineteen-nineties. In the subsequent two years, three plays were rapidly mounted onto the stage, and McDonagh rose quickly to fame as a result. Influenced by the parentage and the relatives, in his early five plays, McDonagh sets. 政治大. the locales in the rural West of Ireland: Leenane for the Leenane trilogy of The Beauty. 立. Queen of Leenane (1996), The Lonesome West (1997), and A Skull in Connemara. ‧ 國. 學. (1997); Aran Islands for The Cripple of Inishmaan (1997) and The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001). The successive works, including The Pillowman (2003) and The. ‧. Behanding in Spokane (2010) are placed in an unidentified dictatorship state and the. Nat. sit. y. United States respectively. Other than a playwright, Martin McDonagh is also a. n. al. er. io. scenarist and a film director. His short movie Six Shooter (2005) won him an. i n U. v. Academy Award for the Best Short Film, and the following film In Bruges (2008). Ch. engchi. was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay in the Academy Award. McDonagh never hides his fondness of films. He once admitted that compared to the theater, movies interest him more; he even often treats theater from “a film fan’s perspective” (O’Toole, “Nowhere Man” N. pag.).4 It is baffling to categorize the writing style of Martin McDonagh. Three of the most distinctive peculiarities are violence, grotesque mixture, and idiosyncratic Irishness. Among all, violence is the most recognizable one. That violence prevails in his plays makes McDonagh frequently associated with the latest “enfant terrible of . 4. Fintan O’Toole launches many interviews with Martin McDonagh..

(11) . Ho 4 . theatre” (O’Hagan N. pag.),5 and British “in-yer-face theatre” in which the plays are considered so confrontational, violent, provocative, and visceral that shock the audience with the invasion of personal space and transgression of normal boundaries (Sierz 4). For example, in the dénouement of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, the fortyyear-old spinster Maureen who gets trapped into the rural Ireland with her old mother Mag throws hot oil into Mag’s midriff when she realizes that it is Mag who deceives her to prevent her from escaping with her lover to the United States. In The Lieutenant of Inishmore, the terrorist Padraic strafes his family as well as friends and. 政治大. scatters the corpses merely because of the discovery of the death of his pet cat. In this. 立. sense, McDonagh is aligned with British playwrights such as Anthony Neilson, Sarah. ‧ 國. 學. Kane and Mark Ravenhill, who employ a great amount of shock tactics like swearwords, nudity, sex and violence on the stage, to apparently challenge the. ‧. physical and emotional endurance of the audience, and most importantly, to force the. Nat. sit. y. audience to touch upon intimate subjects and come to terms with “what is both most. n. al. er. io. central to our humanity and most often hidden in our daily behavior” (Sierz 9).. i n U. v. In spite of violence, Martin McDonagh is characterized by the addition of black. Ch. engchi. humor and absurdity in his works which moulds his plays into a grotesque mixture of tragic elements and comic ones. Werner Huber asserts that McDonagh’s black humor works on the juxtaposition of “zanies and paddywhackery with elements of horror and the macabre,” and this characteristic supplements the perplexing aspect to the excesses of physical violence and brutality (20). McDonagh also acknowledges that he indeed manages to blend comedy and cruelty since he thinks that one illuminates the other, and “people can see things more clearly through exaggeration than through . 5. The notorious nickname as enfant terrible reflects not only on the reviews of McDonagh’s plays but also on his anecdotal verbal clash with Sean Connery in the ceremony at the 1996 Evening Standard Theatre Awards where he won Most Promising Newcomer Prize. But McDonagh explains that it was merely a “drunken eejit stuff” (O’ Hagan N. pag.). .

(12) . Ho 5 . reality”(O’Hagan N. pag.). As a result, McDonagh’s works, from a positive perspective, are considered as postmodern fusion of old and new in which the traditional realism is superimposed unto “something strange, uncanny and atypical” (Chamber 1). Fintan O’Toole claims that this blending is surreal and unsettling but at the same time maintains the “universality of violence,” representing the universal motif of violence. (“Introduction” xvii). The blending of tragedy and comedy, at the same time, changes the Irishness shown in his plays into a bizarre distortion, which stimulates discussion and scrutiny.. 政治大. With the setting in the West of Ireland, the plays are often censured for portraying the. 立. non-Irish rural Ireland. From the positive viewpoints, McDonagh is considered. ‧ 國. 學. talented to add creativity in the fusion. Werner Huber points out that his image of Ireland is an unconventional one that shows “an outsider’s view characterized by. ‧. satire, black humor, cartoon-like reductions, and grotesque and ‘Gothic’ distortion”. Nat. sit. y. (15). Richard Rankin Russell states that with a traditionally pastoral setting, however,. n. al. er. io. McDonagh’s works do not become resigned to the conventionally bucolic depiction. i n U. v. and nationality of Irish identity; instead, the atmosphere in his works is saturated with. Ch. engchi. “the pugnacious” (1). Laura Eldred claims that McDonagh for the one thing emulates the convention of Irish dramatist forebears, such as John Synge and Sean O’Casey; for another, he integrates the elements of contemporary violent films and horror entertainment appropriated from Hollywood directors (198-199). Yet many critics disparage McDonagh’s fusion as caricature and stereotype (Chamber 1). Joan FitzPatrick Dean attributes McDonagh’s noted features to his fondness of clichés, such as mistaken identity, hidden truths, running gags, and sudden reversals that “fuel the breakneck momentum of farce” (Dean 27). Ondřej Pilný compares McDonagh’s representation of Ireland to the films of Quentin.

(13) . Ho 6 . Tarantino portraying urban life in the United States and claims the shallowness of McDonagh’s plays which “progressively satirise the pervasive concern of Irish theatre discourse with the issue of Irish identity, simply by offering an absurd, degenerated picture as a version of ‘what the Irish are like’” (Pilný, “Martin McDonagh” 228). Chamber also points out that McDonagh is frequently criticized as catering into “old stereotypes of Irishness” with puppet-like and depthless characterization (7). For McDonagh, the true Irishness or Irish identity is not his concern. His real motive is simply to tell stories; storytelling is his ultimate and universal objective, no. 政治大. matter what his nationality and identity is. Even though some critics connect the motif. 立. of storytelling revealed in his play to the Irish tradition, McDonagh denies the direct. ‧ 國. 學. influence and inheritance. For him, storytelling is the universal representation of how people see this world, more than “the way you’ve been brought up or your history of 6. ‧. storytelling” (O’Toole, “Martin McDonagh” N. pag.).. O’Toole associates. Nat. sit. y. McDonagh’s stylistic features of “speed and violence and a slightly surreal feeling” in. n. al. er. io. his plays with the “fairy-tale dimension.” When being queried about this association,. i n U. v. McDonagh admitted that many of his stories were inspired by fairy tales since he. Ch. engchi. practiced writing by rewriting some famous tales, and even created his own works by imitating the styles of fairy tales, writing them “almost like fairy-tale stories” (“Martin McDonagh” N. pag.). Theater for McDonagh is merely a form of storytelling among many others,7 which is “a box to tell a story in” (McKinley N. . 6. Many critics allude McDonagh’s style to the Irish playwright John Synge of the early twenty century and the tradition of the allegorical narrative of Irish dramas. McDonagh himself denies the direct influence. Asked by Fintan O’Toole the question about the impact of storytelling tradition in Irish culture, McDonagh asserts that “[t]he whole history of Irish storytelling didn’t really come into it […] So I couldn’t say that it had any kind of influence in it” (“Martin McDonagh” N. pag.). However, Laura Eldred doubts the renunciation of McDonagh. She argues from the similarities of the styles to declare that McDonagh is “ quite conscious of his predecessors” (202), especially in the employment of violence and brutality which are usually used by Synge and O’Casey “to disturb an audience, often to show the limitation of Irish society” (200). 7 As mentioned above, Martin McDonagh never conceals his preference for films over theater. Films influence him more than theater does.In McKinley’s interview, McDonagh divulges his opinion of.

(14) . Ho 7 . pag.). Richard Rankin Russell also perceives in McDonagh’s works an essence of the art of storytelling, and connects it to the convention of the earlier Irish dramatists, such as W. B. Yeats, John Synge, and Lady Gregory (Russell 2). However, for McDonagh, storytelling is just the way to see the world, which is mostly influenced by American films and South American novelist, Jorge Luis Borges (O’Toole, “Martin McDonagh” N. pag). McDonagh once disclosed in the 2006 interview with Fintan O’Toole that he likes Borges so much that he read lots of works written by Borges and that led him into storytelling and imagination (O’Toole, “A Mind” N. pag.).. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 1.3 Plot Summary of The Pillowman. The locale of the play is set in an interrogation room in an unidentified. ‧. dictatorship 8 where two police detectives, Tupolski and Ariel, are questioning. Nat. sit. y. Katurian Katrurian Katrurian,9 who is a tale writer, for serial child murders because. n. al. er. io. not only the murder patterns are similar to the plots of his horrible tales, but the. i n U. v. fingers of one of the victimized children are found in Katurian’s house. At the same. Ch. engchi. time, Katurian’s retarded brother, Michal, is also captivated by the detectives to extort the confession of the murders. Realizing that his brother is imprisoned in the elitism of theater: “[i]t's strange to be working in an art form that costs $100 to participate in” (McKinley N.pag.). 8 Eamonn Jordan in his essay associates The Pillowman with indications of nationality and Irishness. For example, Kamenice, the town where the Katurian brothers live, has no specific direction, though, “towns by that name can be found in Northern Albania and in the Czech Republic.” Moreover, “The Little Green Pig” connotes Irishness in two senses. First, the color green has “a fundamental association with Irishness.” Second, “classical British stereotypes have long associated the Irish with pigs.” For further discussion on the Irishness in the play, please see Jordan’s “War on Narrative: The Pillowman,” page 191. 9 In The Pillowman, the full name of the protagonist Katurian is “Katurian Katurian Katurian,” with the same word for his first, middle, and last name. The political or historical signification of this name is neither explained nor referred to in the play. But José Lanters discusses the concept of simulacrum with the association of Katurian’s full name and the initials “KKK” with the empty reference. Lanters raises the following questions which are not answered because the text does not provide clear connection: “Do the initials evoke the Ku Klux Klan and therefore suggest Katurian’s sinister intentions? Or do they merely signify mindless repetition, and therefore evoke postmodern concepts like simulacrum and endless production? ” (Lanters 13)..

(15) . Ho 8 . neighboring cell, Katurian sneaks into the cell, attempting to ease Michal’s anxiety. In talking with Michal, Katurian realizes that it is Michal who butchered the children to death in order to experiment if the plots in Katurian’s stories were too far-fetched to be carried out. To protect his brother from the torture of the detectives, to redeem his own guilt of the parricide, and to save his own works from being destroyed by the police, Katurian smothers Michal and confesses to the police to have committed all the murders, including his parents’ and Michal’s deaths. Katurian makes concession with the police: he confesses the truth on condition that his tales will not be burned. 政治大. even though he will be executed on the account of the murders. At last, whereas. 立. Katurian is shot by Tupolski, his tales are preserved and sealed by Ariel.. ‧ 國. 學. 1.4 Theatre Review and Literature Review. ‧. The Pillowman has aroused many theatrical and academic discussions since it. Nat. sit. y. was premiered in 2003. These discussions mainly revolve around storytelling, the. n. al. er. io. presentation of allegories, as well as the odd twists and turns throughout the play. In. i n U. v. the theatrical manner, theatre critics mention storytelling as a motif and storytelling as. Ch. engchi. story-within-the-story as a frame to concern how the content and the form of this play are enchantingly intertwined to present the process and the effect of storytelling. In the academic manner, other than storytelling, some critics offer interpretations of the bizarre convolutions of the plots from positive and negative angles to argue the worth of this play. Many theatre reviews provide observations on the association between the structural frame of the story-within-the-story and the discussion of storytelling and art in The Pillowman. Among the critics, Caryn James, Hilton Als, and Elyse Sommer focus on the enthralling structural design that enables the play to display a semi-.

(16) . Ho 9 . realistic atmosphere and perform a wonder like what McDonagh’s precursors did. Caryn James (2005) acclaims that the story-within-the-story device blurs reality and fantasy and helps to arouse more “emotional resonance” than most naturalistic plays (James N. pag.). Hilton Als (2005) compares McDonagh with the playwright Luigi Pirandello who is famous for his play Six Characters in Search of an Author and think that both plays deal with the “intellectual components of fiction” by displaying the metatheatrical effect (Als N. pag.). Elyse Sommer (2005) parallels McDonagh with Kafka to state that, aside from the parental abuse and the concern of the obligation of. 政治大. writers, the structural essence of this play is like a “Kafkaesque police investigation”. 立. (Sommer N. pag.). On the other hand, Charles McGrath and Ben Brantley notice that. ‧ 國. 學. the essence of the play is to present the spirit of storytelling. Charles McGrath (2005) mentions that this play is partly about “the nature of storytelling” full of touches of. ‧. slapstick and farce, “of Kafka, Mamet and Beckett, of the Grimm Brothers” (McGrath. Nat. sit. y. N. pag.). Ben Brantley (2005) asserts that McDonagh aims not to preach the power of. n. al. er. io. stories but to “redeem or cleanse or to find a core of solid truth hidden among life’s. i n U. v. illusions.” (Brantley N. pag.) He also observes that every character in this play is in a. Ch. engchi. sense a storyteller; the relationship between narrator and listener “has its sadomasochistic aspects” (Brantley N. pag.). These theatre critics pay attention not only to the similarities between The Pillowman and its predecessors, but also to the significance this play carries. Compared to the theatre reviews, literature reviews scrutinize more perspectives in addition to storytelling. Some of the critics explore the multiple twists in the play which are more significant than merely being treated as pastiche and parody. Lisa Fitzpatrick (2006) looks into this issue from the linguistic perspective, dissecting Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman and A Skull in Connemara from the mixture of.

(17) . Ho 10 . Hibernia and Londoner English. She argues that the characteristic of McDonagh’s theatrically linguistic tactic of “the repetition of ‘stichomythic sequence’” is not to parody the Irish identity nor to engage the audience into an emotional identification, but to alienate the audience to realize the “human condition” (148-149). Eamonn Jordan (2006) examines the twist from the dialogical relation from the play and other texts by appropriating Bakhtin’s Carnivalesque to detail the transgressive twist in The Pillowman, such as the violation of innocence and reversal of roles. Jordan retorts some critics who label McDonagh as pasticheur; he reads his works as “palimpsest,”. 政治大. on which the old texts and the new ones can be intertextual and dialogical. He also. 立. points out that this play reverses the stereotypical conception about parables and. ‧ 國. 學. fairytales, which are treated as an access for children to social values and common emotions. In this sense, this play is actually a “comment on the process of. ‧. representation” of literature, parables and fairy tales (Jordan 184).. Nat. sit. y. Unlike the previous two positive critics, Ondřej Pilný (2006) criticizes the. n. al. er. io. inconsequentially nebulous themes and the shallow characterization of The. i n U. v. Pillowman. He regards this play as a “grotesque entertainment” which is, for one. Ch. engchi. thing, composed of the blending of different genres and switching of themes, with the uncanny as a device. For another, the characters lacking profoundly psychological depiction are just like assortment of puppies, “swung around by their manipulative creator, while the ultimate aim seems to be to shunt the audience to and fro in a similar way without losing a firm grip over it” (“Grotesque Entertainment” 219). Hana Worthen and W. B. Worthen (2006) and Brian Cliff (2007) study the storytelling and allegorical aspect of The Pillowman. Hana Worthen and W. B. Worthen appropriate the dialectic of allegory from Walter Benjamin to study the allegories in the play and the dialectical relation between the author and the reader/the.

(18) . Ho 11 . audience. The allegories thus become a contentious site which “blur[s] the distinction between allegory and allegoresis” (Worthen and Worthen 165, italic in the original). Brian Cliff analyzes the redemption function of storytelling in The Pillowman by disclosing two themes of The Pillowman: one is the connection between art and suffering, and the other is that art works (or tales, in the sense of this play) satisfy the desire of redemption, “not through art itself, but through his [Katurian’s] commitment to the idea of being an artist” (Cliff 136). However, in terms of redemption, Cliff claims that in this play filled with violent and comic elements, the preservation of. 政治大. Katurian’s manuscripts by Ariel is a finishing stroke that brings to light the gravity,. 立. redemption, and potential grace, and this potential grace proves Katurian’s art to be. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. “transformative” because of its “redemptive impulse” (143).. 1.5 Thesis Argument. Nat. sit. y. The abovementioned critics provide multiple perspectives to approach The. n. al. er. io. Pillowman, assisting the reader and the audience to understand and interpret the. i n U. v. profound meanings of this play. Some of them notice the exchanges of life stories. Ch. engchi. within the four characters and the importance of storytelling as a recurrent gesture throughout the play, and others point out that the metatheatrical scaffolding creates an illusionary ambience for the play, which makes this play stand out. However, while most of the critics dissect storytelling and the metatheatrical frame into separate parts to discuss, none of the critics study the motif of storytelling and the metatheatrical form as a whole. Also, few of the critics examine the correlation between storytelling and trauma which is another motif of this play. Storytelling makes a great impact on the characters in the confrontation with their traumas, but previous criticisms do not analyze the effect of storytelling on the characters..

(19) . Ho 12 Storytelling and trauma are two significant and correlated themes in The. Pillowman, a play full of storytelling, narrations, and life stories. In the play, because the modus operandi of the murders are very identical to the plots portrayed in Katurian’s tales, along with the confession of the murders from Michal, the detectives, Tupolski and Ariel, keep inducing Katurian to narrate his tales and manage to discuss his stories to dig out the associations between the tales and the murders. The examination and the debate over Katurian’s tales not only gradually expose Katurian’s traumatic past, but also motivate the other three characters—Michal, Ariel,. 政治大. and Tupolski—to retrieve their distressing life stories and to find self-consoling. 立. explanations for their traumas. Yet, although storytelling stimulates the characters to. ‧ 國. 學. encounter their past again, they never really face up to their traumas and tackle them. Storytelling merely serves them as a painless way to comfort themselves. It becomes. ‧. a self-deceptive means to resist the confrontation with their traumas.. Nat. sit. y. My argument of this thesis is that storytelling provides the characters in The. n. al. er. io. Pillowman with self-deceptive ways of dealing with their traumas and evading their. i n U. v. reality10. The characters always stay in their self-deception and self-evasion, failing to. Ch. engchi. face up to their traumas or heal their scars, but through self-deception and evasion, they seem to obtain certain conciliation with their traumatic past. The four main characters are all trapped in their violent and traumatic memories, including child abuse (Katurian, Michal, Ariel, and Tupolski), parricide (Katurian, Michal, and Ariel) and child loss (Tupolski). During the reciprocal storytelling within the four characters, they transform themselves from readers/listeners into storytellers who narrate their life stories; all of them are listeners and tellers. The process of storytelling enables the . 10. “Reality” mentioned in this thesis is objective and tangible reality comparable to fiction and imagination, rather than “psychical reality,” which is defined by Laplanche and Pontalis as a term “used by Freud to designate whatever in the subject’s psyche” regarding “unconscious desire” and “phantasies” (363). The ontological, philosophical and psychological definitions of reality are too complicated to be covered and coped with in this thesis..

(20) . Ho 13 . characters to reconstruct and interpret their past by offering an imaginary space and transferential space where imagination can step in to influence their interpretation of reality. Hereby they attain a sparkle of self-consolation, as well as tenderness and empathy toward each other. However, the conciliation with the past maybe selfdeceptive consolation for the characters, because they still avoid themselves from facing up to the traumatic memories. To a large degree, storytelling reinforces selfdeception and self-evasion of the characters that prevent them from mentioning and looking directly at their past and reality. Without obtaining real solution to traumas,. 政治大. the characters are just trapped into an endless cycle of storytelling and traumatic. 立. memories.. ‧ 國. 學. The chief concern in the development of my argument is self-deception. Firstly I will scrutinize the issue with a thorough analysis of Katurian who is the main. ‧. storyteller employing his tales to create an imaginary space where he transforms. Nat. sit. y. himself into a new identity and lives through a new revision of the traumatic past. As. n. al. er. io. to the other three characters who are the story-listeners, I will explore how they are. i n U. v. affected by the narrations of Katurian and become storytellers, how they render a self-. Ch. engchi. consoling account for their traumatic past through storytelling, and how they resist the past and dodge reality. Self-deception blocks the characters from clearly seeing through their traumas. Although storytelling grants them opportunities to find consolation for their disturbing past, they do not really walk out of their traumatic memories. To expand on the main concern, I will particularly interpret metatheatrical enactment and the dynamics in the narrative relations in The Pillowman. The enactment of Katurian’s tales is distinctive of this play. It is the embodiment of selfdeception of Katurian. In Act One Scene Two, Katurian narrates and enacts his tale.

(21) . Ho 14 . “The Writer and the Writer’s Brother” in an abstract and imaginary space where Katurian is simultaneously the narrator and the character. At the end of this tale, Katurian blurs the boundary between the imaginary tale and his life stories by suturing his traumatic past with the tales. With this transition and sudden shift, the enactment of the story becomes the enactment of his life; the imaginary space of the tale is thus woven with the space of memory, becoming the mixture of imagination and reality. The case is the same with the ending of The Pillowman. At long last Katurian is executed by Tupolski, but then “[t]he dead Katurian slowly gets to his feet. 政治大. […], and speaks” (McDonagh 102),11 and he starts to narrate the finale of his life as. 立. similarly as he narrates his tale in Act One Scene Two. This master-stroke ending. ‧ 國. 學. displays the mind-space of Katurian who devises his final story and acts it out in his mind. It not only obfuscates the boundary between the real and the fictional to create. ‧. an illusion for the whole play, but also reveals the confusion of self-identification of. Nat. sit. y. Katurian between the narrator and the character. Such confusion forces him to fall. n. al. er. io. into self-deception to soothe away his trauma and mental suffering, as well as to make. i n U. v. compensation for his sense of guilt of parricide and fratricide. The enactment of the. Ch. engchi. tales transform Katurian into the fictional roles created by himself and provides him an identity that undertakes the atonement and the responsibility for his murders. The dynamics in the narrative relations is another peculiarity in The Pillowman. Here I emphasize the process of transmission, reception, and the potential of transformation in the narrative relations. In the process of storytelling, listeners will be influenced by the storytellers and their stories will be elicited. At that moment, the listeners turn out to be storytellers as well. The other three characters, Michal, Ariel, and Tupolski, undergo such transformation in the play. Originally, Tupolski and Ariel 11. Martin McDonagh, The Pillowman (New York: Faber and Faber, Inc., 2003) p. 102. All subsequent references to this play will be noted parenthetically in the text..

(22) . Ho 15 . are two detectives who desperately try to find out the evidence to convict Katurian of his crime from his tales. During the investigation, attempting to detect the associations between the tales and the life experiences, they are also two listeners who keep heeding Katurian telling his dark tales as well as his devastatingly traumatic childhood experiences. Nevertheless, in Act Three, the roles as the listener and storyteller are reversed: the two detectives transform themselves into the storytellers narrating their life experiences and tales to Katurian. Michal, Katurian’s retarded brother, is another instance as a listener who changes. 政治大. into a “storywriter” by demonstrating his “writing” with hands-on experiment on the. 立. plots based on the tales of Katurian. As a victim suffering from the parental. ‧ 國. 學. maltreatment for seven straight years, Michal seems to be afflicted with brain damage and becomes indifferent to right and wrong. However, he is not unaware of killing. ‧. children as a wrongdoing and crime. He also knows that his traumatic suffering can. Nat. sit. y. excuse himself from punishment. Through acting out Katurian’s tales, Michal buries. al. n. the plots he likes.. er. io. himself into self-deception of becoming the characters of the tales and lives through. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Storytelling provides these characters a chance to reconstruct their distressing past and to see their life as stories. In their life stories, they are both the roles and the narrators at the same time. As the roles, they associate themselves with tales and enact the plot in the tales; as the narrator, they create the desired plot structures they want. They keep avoiding themselves from dealing with their traumas and facing with reality. The reinterpretation of their life solely helps them to ease their anxiety and dodge sense of guilt. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that they gain solace from reinterpretation and from disavowal and avowal of their life stories. Self-deception.

(23) . Ho 16 . may be necessarily a self-consoling means for them to put aside their past and in order to live at their present.. 1.6 Theoretical Approach In this thesis I primarily employ the self-deception theory of Herbert Fingarette to analyze the aspects of self-deception in the four principal characters in The Pillowman. In Chapter Two, I adopt the discussion of “I-ME relations” in selfnarratives to approach the metatheatrical enactment of tales. As for the narrative. 政治大. dynamics within the characters in the discussion of Chapter Three, I appropriate the. 立. study of transference by Peter Brooks, including the transferential situation of. ‧ 國. 學. narrative and transferential space to discuss how the characters change into the storytellers and how they are motivated to tell their own stories.. ‧. According to Fingarette, self-deception is involved with disavowal and avowal. Nat. sit. y. of identity. It concerns “the capacity of a person to identify himself to himself as a. n. al. er. io. particular person engaged in the world in specific ways, the capacity of a person to. i n U. v. reject such identification and engagement” (Fingarette 90). On the one hand, the self-. Ch. engchi. deceiver avows to have a certain identity and spells out his engagement of the world in a specific way; but on the other hand, he refuses to admit his other identity and refuses to spell out his engagements of the world. The disavowal of the engagement of the world leaves some gaps in the real life story. To supplement the part that he does not spell out, the self-deceiver has to fabricate stories to fill in the gaps, so the self-deceiver has to come up with some “cover-story” (Fingarette 48) and spell out the cover-story that can complete the sequence of his stories. Eventually, he will start to believe his cover-story when he continues to spell it out and it turns out to be his life.

(24) . Ho 17 . stories that “he tells [people] he also tells himself” (61). At this moment, he avows to be another identity and engage in the world in a certain way The “I-Me relations” is proposed by many critics. It describes that when writing autobiographical self-narratives, the author will imagine the story as a space and there is a character representing the author to act in the space. At this moment, whereas the author who narrates the story as an outsider is the Author I, the character who is created to live along in the story is the Character Me. This conception is similar to the notion of “mind-space” expounded by the psychologist Julian Jaynes. Jaynes. 政治大. spatializes consciousness as a “mind-space” (46). In that space there is a subject. 立. “Analog I” and an object “Metaphor Me.” The former moves into the imagination to. ‧ 國. 學. map out things that do not truly happen, and the latter is the object that is illustrated and narrated. Adriana Cavarero proposes the analogous idea as “the narratable self”. ‧. (33). For her, an autobiographical self-narrative is an interplay between the I and the. Nat. sit. y. self; the I is the narrator and the self is the narrated. The interplay of the two is likely. n. al. er. io. to cause the ambiguity which makes people fail to “distinguish the I who narrates it. i n U. v. [the life story] from the self who is narrated” (Cavarero 34, italics in the original).. Ch. engchi. Eventually, people will live their life as if they are living their stories. In addition to the self-deception theory for the analysis of the storyteller in the play, I also use Freudian theory of transference and Peter Brooks’ theory of storytelling to read the story-listeners in the play. With the assistance of Freudian transference, Brooks compares storytelling with transference and proposes storytelling as a transferential relation. Based on the originally psychoanalytic conception of Freud, transference bears two shades of denotations: for one thing, it means that individuals transfer their past experiences to the present and they respond to the current situation based on the past experiences; in other words, it is.

(25) . Ho 18 . “displacement from the past into the present” (Erwin 567). For another, this displacement and the retrieval of the past are actualized in the clinical relation between the analyst and the analysand. Storytelling and transference denote the similar dynamic relation between the teller and the listener. For Brooks, storytelling is indeed a “dialogic relation of narrative production and interpretation” (Brooks, Psychoanalysis 50). He furthermore asserts that most narratives present the “transferential condition,” which is related to the eagerness to the transmissibility of the stories, “the need to be heard” (50). This dynamic relation resembles a. 政治大. transactional relation between the analyst and the analysand in psychoanalytical. 立. therapeutic process. Because the transferential relation is a process of transmission,. ‧ 國. 學. interpretation, and reconstruction, between the teller and the listener, there is a marginal space of interpretation and filling of imagination defined as the. ‧. “transferential space.” As claimed by Brooks, it is the place “of fictions, of. Nat. sit. y. reproductions, of reprints, of repetitions,” the marginal space where change is effected,. n. al. er. io. “through interpretation and construction” (68). In The Pillowman, the transferential. i n U. v. relation between the storytellers and the listeners presents such space of interpretation and reconstruction.. Ch. engchi. 1.7 Chapter Organization This thesis is separated into four chapters. Chapter One is the prefatory chapter laying out the introduction of Martin McDonagh, his plays, The Pillowman, and the contents of this thesis. Chapter Two, “The Storyteller and Self-Deception,” examines Katurian who is the main storyteller in this play. This chapter argues that Katurian employs storytelling as a self-deceptive way to console himself from the distressing past without really facing up to the trauma. Katurian writes tales to produce an.

(26) . Ho 19 . imaginary space where he creates another self to live in the revision of his traumatic past. Thus he attains a self-deceptive way to console himself by transforming those agonizing recollections into the versions he can accept. Eventually he identifies with the fictional characters created by himself and gets preoccupied with his own imaginary life structures. Chapter Three, “The Story-Listener and Self-Deception,” deals with the other three characters to argue that although the other three characters keep evading looking back to their past and even living in self-evasion, to some extent, they attain self-deceptive explanations for their traumas. Through the narrative. 政治大. relations in storytelling, Michal, Ariel, and Tupolski, as the story-listeners, interpret. 立. and construct the meanings of the tales of Katurian. The interpretations of the tales. ‧ 國. 學. help them to reinterpret and to reconstruct their past. Thus they find self-deceptive explanations for their traumas and reach an empathetic consensus with Katurian by. ‧. reinterpreting their traumatic past. At the same time, they are storytellers who spell. Nat. sit. y. out the self-comforting plot structures for them to confront with their present.. n. al. er. io. However, they always hold resistance to facing up to the traumas. All of the three. i n U. v. characters are trapped in their self-deception and self-evasion in the confrontation. Ch. engchi. with their traumas. Chapter Four “Self-Deception or Self-Consolation?” is the concluding chapter that wraps up how storytelling and self-deception affect the four characters and how self-deception is served as self-consolation for these characters. Although self-deception blocks their eyes to see reality, it comforts them to some degrees when they look back to their past..

(27) Chapter Two The Storyteller and Self-Deception “Since then, at an uncertain hour/That agony returns, / And till my ghastly tale is told/This heart within me burns.” ------Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” “All our interior world is reality, and that perhaps more so than our apparent world.” ------Marc Chagall. 2.1 Introduction Storytelling, or narrative, is ubiquitous in the human world. According to Roland. 政治大 legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, drama and so forth (Barthes 80). Theodore 立 Barthes, narrative is present in “almost infinite diversity of forms,” such as myth,. ‧ 國. 學. Sarbin proposes that narrative is a “root metaphor” of psychology since it is “an organizing principle for human action” (9). So immersed in narrative, people also. ‧. apply narrative to “recount and reassess the meaning of our past” and even to forestall. sit. y. Nat. the future (Brooks, Reading for the Plot 3).. al. er. io. Storytelling is also the essential heartbeat of The Pillowman: the protagonist is a. v. n. storywriter; many tales written by the protagonist are narrated and related in the play;. Ch. engchi. i n U. the written tales are enacted in Act One Scene Two and Act Two Scene Two. Because the progression of the plot in this play is propelled by many stories and tales, storytelling is pervasive in The Pillowman. Among all the characters, the storywriter, Katurian, is the main storyteller triggering other people not only to argue over the essence of storytelling but also to tell stories to confront with their traumas and to relieve themselves. Being an involved victim of parental maltreatment and the murderer of parricide, Katurian deals with his traumas by tale-writing which enables him to build up an imaginary space to suture reality and imagination. By so doing Katurian reconstructs the past and constructs reality in order to relieve himself of the sense of guilt of the parricide and of the 20.

(28) . Ho 21. disturbing memory. He operates storytelling as a self-deceptive way of soothing his traumas. This chapter argues that as a storyteller/story-writer, Katurian falls into a state of self-deception and buries himself into an imaginary space he creates. Writing tales grants Katurian a potential to revise his life stories as new versions accepted by himself. When writing tales, Katurian fabricates the new plot structure and new identity for his stories. Preoccupied with his own tales, he starts to go through a selfdeceptive way by living in the fabricated plot structure and identifying with the. 政治大. character created by himself. With reality and fiction interpenetrated and. 立. undifferentiated, ultimately the storyteller becomes a self-deceiver who disavows and. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. refuses to admit reality.. 2.2 Storytelling as a Means of Self-deception. Nat. sit. y. Storytelling makes people get immersed in self-deception very likely when. n. al. er. io. people are inclined to treat life as stories. The faculty of storytelling helps people to. i n U. v. contrive a plot structure to interpret and construct their life experiences, but it. Ch. engchi. possibly affects people to misrecognize their life as their imaginary plots and to live in self-deception. Storytelling is indispensable in human life, because people tend to interpret and construct their life experiences by cutting continuing life into chunks of life stories to rationalize and to organize their thoughts and lived experiences. Assembling fragments of life into clusters of stories depends on one’s ability of organization and imagination. With imagination, people can not only come up with plots to arrange their life stories but also visualize themselves as characters who take action in the stories. Once they treat themselves as characters, presumably they will become too preoccupied by their identity as characters to differentiate reality from.

(29) . Ho 22. imagination. In the end, they misidentify themselves and get engrossed in illusion and self-deception.. 2.2.1 Storytelling as an Organizing Principle Storytelling is a psychological mechanism that has tremendous impacts on people because it shapes and organizes thoughts. Sarbin proposes that the narrative is an organizing principle for human action. People tend to describe daily life with an implicit or explicit application of plots, and plots influence the flow of action: “[t]he. 政治大. narrative is a way of organizing episodes, actions, and accounts of actions; it is an. 立. achievement that brings together mundane facts and fantastic creations; time and. ‧ 國. 學. place are incorporated. The narrative allows for the inclusion of actors’ reasons for their acts, as well as the causes of happening” (Sarbin 9). In other words, the narrative. ‧. and storytelling is a means for people to order, to arrange, and to explain the past, so. Nat. n. al. er. io. disposition for life which streams in ongoing time and space.. sit. y. as to sort out causes and effects in daily life. It provides an explanation and. i n U. v. Sarbin borrows Stephen Pepper’s notion of “root metaphor” to explicate the. Ch. engchi. narrative as a crucial root metaphor because people are inclined to pin down everchanging and infinite life to a finite story with the scaffolding of contexts. Root metaphors, as Pepper defines it, are the piloting categories that direct people to understand, explain, and define this world: “[i]n terms of these categories he [every individual] proceeds to study all other area of facts[…] He undertakes to interpret all facts in terms of these categories” (qtd. in Sarbin 5). According to Pepper’s definition, there are four root metaphors: formism, mechanism, organism, and contextualism. Among the four, the idea of contextualism, as Sarbin appropriates, is related to the narrative. Contextualism purports to explain fluctuating and fluid life incidents in a.

(30) . Ho 23. contextual cause-effect frame. Sarbin explicates it as “an ongoing texture of multiply elaborated events, each leading to others, each being influenced by collateral episodes, and by the efforts of multiple agents who engage in actions to satisfy their needs and meet their obligation” (6). Hubert Hermans and Harry Kempen expound that contextualism presupposes to form multiplicity of past, present, and future as an interconnected unity and totality. Eventually contextualism helps life to reach a “final causation” (Hermans and Kempen16). In so doing the person as a storyteller is in a continuous process of meaning construction for arranging events as a whole and is. 政治大. oriented to “the active realization of purpose and goals” (Hermans and Kempen 16).. 立. Peter Brooks also asserts the importance of storytelling as drawing lines for life. ‧ 國. 學. and regularizing human life and psychology. In his viewpoint, plot is the most crucial principle that makes stories “finite and comprehensible,” so that the narrative. ‧. “demarcates, encloses, establishes limits, orders” (Reading for the Plot 4). This. Nat. sit. y. characteristic also contributes to psychoanalysis which interprets chaotic dreams,. n. al. er. io. because analysts are able to “reconstruct intentions and connections, [and] to replot. i n U. v. the dream as narrative” (Brooks, Reading for the Plot 5). Psychoanalysis is a science. Ch. engchi. of interpreting narratives related by patients; narratives told by patients are composed of certain events in patients’ life. To help patients, analysts reexamine their life events, which furtively but enormously influence patients, and analysts in turn extract “clinical significance” and interpret patients’ narratives (Erwin 336). The characteristic of organizing life of storytelling thus helps people to deal with their trauma. Since narrative facilitates people to put chaotic incidents into orderly structure, it rescues victims of traumatization from upheaval back to normal. Michele Crossley asserts that narrative helps people to maintain coherence, unity, meaningfulness and identity after experiences of traumatization by bringing the.

(31) . Ho 24. disrupted routine back to normal order and connection, which “re-establish[es] a semblance of meaning in the life” (11). In addition to its normalizing function, storytelling also induces catharsis. Richard Kearney explores ways in which narrative provides cathartic release for victims of trauma by having victims return to their past and search for a way to make a compromise with their future: “[t]he recounting of experience through the formal medium of plot, fiction or spectacle permits us to repeat the past forward so to speak […] In the play of narrative re-creation we are invited to revisit our lives—through the actions and personas of others —so as to live. 政治大. them otherwise. We discover a way to give a future to the past” (51, italic in the. 立. original). Narrative provides a plot structure and new characters for victims of. ‧ 國. 學. traumatization to revisit the past with a more disinterested and unaffected attitude so that the victims can adjust their past to their present and future more easily. Therefore,. ‧. the components of the narrative, such as “displacement”, “condensation”,. Nat. sit. y. “emplotment”, “schematism”, “estrangement” and “synthesis” enable people to touch. al. n. (56).. er. io. upon “the reality of the suffering which could not be faced head-on or at first-hand”. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 2.2.2 Storytelling and Imagination Composed by reality and imagination, narrative helps victims to revisit their past and re-construct it to tread on their present and future, and to re-order their smashed past broken by the attack of trauma.12 Storytelling, or narrative, serves such purpose because it provides people with a context to give explanations and interpretations for their traumatic past. Moreover, storytelling makes available an in-between space Nerea Arruti discusses the academic repertoire of the concern in trauma and representation, including writing about trauma. But she doubts if such representation is able to serve therapeutic function, since “the interconnection between critical thought and art cannot erase the shattering of the glass, the wounded word” (7). 12.

(32) . Ho 25. where reality and imagination coexist, since reconstruction needs imagination to fill in the gaps between the addition and omission of reality. Since stories consist of reality and imagination, storytelling is filled with real and imaginative dialogues. Hubert Hermans and Els Hermans-Jansen make suppositions for narratives: “stories acknowledge both the perception of reality and the power of imagination (e.g., in filling the gaps in one’s memory and in anticipating future events); whereas stories combine fact and fiction, the telling of stories involves real and imaginal (sic) dialogues” (11).. 政治大. Imagination and fantasy contribute integration to our recognition of this world.. 立. In psychoanalytic exposition, fantasy is an unconscious psychical structure underlying. ‧ 國. 學. neurotic behavioral traits or symptoms. It is also a consciously imaginative narrative or scenario experienced in daily life; therefore, it consists of “repressed material (in. ‧. disguised form)” and “items derived from genuine childhood experiences” (Erwin. Nat. sit. y. 188). Sigmund Freud regards fantasy as the product of the unsatisfied wishes: “[t]he. n. al. er. io. motive forces of phantasies [fantasies] are unsatisfied wishes, and every single. i n U. v. phantasy is the fulfillment of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality” (qtd. in. Ch. engchi. Erwin 188). Developing from psychoanalytical elucidation of fantasy, Bruno Bettelheim puts stress on the credit of fantasy to complete personality and give people stimulus to meet the difficulty of life: The unconscious is the source of raw materials and the basis upon which the ego erects the edifice of our personality. In this simile our fantasies are the natural resources which provide and shape this raw material, making it useful for the ego’s personality-building tasks. If we are deprived of this natural resource, our life remains limited; without fantasies to give us hope, we do not have the strength to meet the adversities of life. (Bettleheim 121).

(33) . Ho 26. In this way, fantasy and imagination grant people possibilities to form their personality and their perspective of seeing the world. With the assistance of fantasy, people are able to re-construct their recognition and to confront with their sufferings by providing themselves with explanations and justifications.. 2.2.3 Storytelling and I-Me Relation Since stories are made up of reality and imagination, storytelling is also an action combined with real undertaking and imaginative maneuver. When plotting the stories,. 政治大. a storyteller or a storywriter has to produce imaginary roles and characters to. 立. participate in stories. To narrate stories, construct the fictional world, and plot the. ‧ 國. 學. imaginary events, a storyteller needs to invent and develop roles and characters in the tales, as the characters are normally the agents taking actions in plots and events.. ‧. Therefore, storytelling or story-writing is always a process with regard to imaginary. Nat. sit. y. interaction with characters in stories.. n. al. er. io. When a story is autobiographically related to the life of the narrator, the. i n U. v. imaginary character will become the narrator himself. The narrator and the narrated. Ch. engchi. character are the same person, sharing the same self. The distinction between the two lies in the former is the subject I, while the latter changes into the object Me. The storyteller, at this moment, splits into two selves. While one lives his life, the other tells life as if he is an outsider; living and telling become concurrent: “lives are told in being lived and lived in being told” (Carr 61). Sarbin also utilizes it to interpret narrative writing. While the I expresses the author, the Me can be seen as the character. When it comes to self-narrative, the I is the self as an author, whereas the Me is the self as a protagonist in the narrative. This narrative construction enables the author to “imagine the future and reconstruct the past” (Sarbin 18). With the Me as.

(34) . Ho 27. the imaginary character, the author, or the I, is able to map out the world in the story, retrospect the past or envisage the future. In psychological studies, I-Me relation is discussed very often to describe the split of self. Julian Jaynes explains consciousness with a spatialized metaphor “mindspace” (46). In this mind-space, there is an “Analog I” which is the subject moving in our imagination and doing things that we are not really doing. There is also a “Metaphor Me,” a kind of object and “autoscopic images” that we see of ourselves (63). These two attributes work in our consciousness by means of narration which is a. 政治大. process for the “Analog I” to explain and to illustrate the “Metaphor Me” in the. 立. streams of ongoing consciousness. Through explanation and illustration of the object. ‧ 國. 學. of the self, the “Analog I” thus obtains references to examine himself. With this course of action, the image of the “Metaphor Me” will gradually influence the. ‧. “Analog I” and determine the latter; the two will become reconciled. This. Nat. sit. y. reconciliation designates our life story in a more compatible form. As Jaynes states,. n. al. er. io. “situations are chosen which are congruent to this ongoing story, until the picture I. i n U. v. have of myself in my life story determines how I am to act and choose in novel. Ch. engchi. situations as they arise” (64). In this sense, the “Analog I” depends on the “Metaphor Me” to reconstruct his life story and to scheme the ongoing plots for the life story. Adriana Cavarero connects self-narrative to psychological development of the narratable self. For her, writing an autobiographical story is to satisfy the desire of unity. Cavarero establishes her conclusion from Hannah Arendt’s conception of “the narratable self.” In Arendt’s view, every human being perceives this world and himself or herself through the interaction with the other. To construct, to understand, and to tell the life-story of the self, the self needs an other to perceive itself. At this moment, the narratable self comes into being as the other of the self. Ambiguously,.

(35) . Ho 28. the narratable self is an in-between mechanism, an identity simultaneously as the subject (the self) initiating the narration and as the object (the other) being narrated, which creates ambiguity. The interplay of this ambiguity makes people live their lives as they are living their own stories, “without being able to distinguish the I who narrates it from the self who is narrated” (Cavarero 34, italics in the original). When narrating the life-story of the self, personal memory interferes and influences the narration, because it operates to “go on forgetting, re-elaborating, selecting and censuring the episodes of the story that it recounts” (36). In addition, memory. 政治大. stimulates the self to narrate what has been reified by the exposure to the world;. 立. therefore, the story may turn out to be a “false perspective”; and the one who writes. ‧ 國. 學. his/her own story actually does not tell the truth about the self, but “claims to be telling it” (40, italic in the original). Extending Arendt’s theory, Cavarero concludes. ‧. the whole mould of the narratable self as the outcome of pursuing the desire of unity.. Nat. sit. y. To synthesize the split subject and object as a unity, the narrator can only condense. n. al. er. io. his/her life-story into a story that he/she accepts. Self-narration is a plausible way to. i n U. v. attain a desirable identity and unity, since “[n]o identity can in fact gain a better unity. Ch. engchi. than that which condenses itself in the narration of a single act of the hero [the “protagonist” in the self-narration]” (44). By regarding the self as the hero of the selfnarrative, the narrator can obtain a unified self-image and identity. Nevertheless, in Cavarero’s theory, although self-narrative contributes to the coexistence of the I and the Me, it may cause a false perspective of seeing the self and label the self with a wrong identity and image. Sarbin also raises such problematic possibility in self-narrative. People may become excessively preoccupied with a narrative figure, and even the narrated figure they create by themselves: “a person may become overinvolved in a narrative figure portrayed in a novel, play, biography,.