反烏托邦、後末日敘事與鬼魅時間：以《末日浩劫》為例

Dystopia, Post-Apocalyptic Narrative and Spectral Time: John Hillcoat’s The Road as an Example

世界末日的想像一直是西方文學歷久不衰的主題，這些末日想像的敘事大部分都呈現一種反烏托邦的氛圍，人類歷經大災難，見證了文明的崩毀，而失去律法與秩序的人們，在荒涼的文明殘骸之中求生存。就主題而言，這些故事呈現當代社會的問題，或多或少都帶有反烏托邦（dystopia）的色彩。反烏托邦敘事與現代的末日敘事多有重疊之處。一般的解釋會認為兩者高度的重疊是一種悲觀主義，代表人們對未來越來越不抱希望，世界終將走向毀滅。以電影《末日浩劫》為例，雖然影片中並未說明何種原因造成世界的毀滅，片中的父子在資本主義的殘骸中孤獨的旅行求生存，荒涼的殘骸與現今繁華的美國成為強烈的對比。當代的反烏托邦敘事是否為悲觀主義所淹沒？末日的主題向我們預示絕望的未來亦或是開啟了異時間及抵抗的可能？現代的末日敘事中有無救贖的可能？本文試圖從時間性的觀點討論反烏托邦與新末日敘事重疊所開啟的希望。一般而言，烏托邦和反烏托邦敘事皆是藉由另類的時間或空間建構一個想像的世界或社會，末日敘事打開了未來的時間軸，這個時間軸卻是以一個鬼魅的狀態存在，過去的碎片藉著未來借屍還魂。本文將著重於現代的末日敘事的討論，如同伯洛克（Josef Broeck）的研究顯示，現代的末日敘事已經漸漸脫離聖經《啟示錄》的傳統。雖然伯洛克表示新的末日敘事並無一致的形式與內容，本文認為有一支新的末日敘事展現了時間的鬼魅性，企圖破除直線性的時間觀，《末日浩劫》即是最佳例子。借用德勒茲的詞彙來解釋，《末日浩劫》中呈現的末日世界為原創世界（originary world），以鬼魅的姿態穿梭於現在與過去，並且以衝動－－影像揭露過去與現在人性暴力的極致。如鬼魅般的原創世界，以麥科麥娜絲（Susan Mcmanus）的話來說，粉碎了資本主義邏輯下主宰的直線性、量化的時間觀。本文將分成兩個部分探討《末日浩劫》中的反烏托邦、後末日敘事與鬼魅時間：第一個部分將討論新舊末日敘事的差異以及駐足於後末日想像中的時間的鬼魅性，第二部分則探討《末日浩劫》中的鬼魅時間與衝動－－影像所營造出來的資本主義垃圾場。

“The end of the world” has always been a popular theme in the history of Western literature. These apocalyptic narratives often present nightmarish worlds where human beings bear witness to calamities that soon after ruin civilization and leave them hopelessly struggling in the remains of the past. These calamities are actually means of the critique of contemporary social problems in these narratives, which overlaps the themes of dystopian writing. In the recent years, that the development of dystopian narrative is intricately intertwined with new apocalyptic narratives leads us to wonder whether dystopian narrative is overwhelmed by pessimism. The film The Road might serve as a good example. Although the cause of the end of the world is never explicitly stated in the film, the protagonists, a father and his son, travel lonely across the residues of the past capitalist world in their journey to a safer and warmer place, bearing witness to the sharp contrast between the past wealthy America and the present hellish world. Is the modern dystopian narrative flooded with pessimism? Does the theme of the end of the world foretell a hopeless future or open a different register of time with the possibility of resistance? Is redemption attainable in the modern apocalyptic narrative? This paper explores the hope triggered by the mixture of dystopian and post-apocalyptic narratives from the perspective of time and temporality. Generally speaking, utopian and dystopian narratives are concerned with creating an alternative human society or world by means of the imagination of a different time or space. The apocalyptic narrative opens up a different temporal register of future though this temporality is a spectral time whereby the fragments of the past are constantly haunting the future. This paper examines the relationship among dystopia, post-apocalyptic narrative and spectral time. The first section of the paper focuses on the differences between old and new apocalyptic narratives and the spectral time sojourned in the post-apocalyptic scenario. The second section discusses the capitalist swamp extracted by spectral time and the impulse-image in The Road.