英文摘要 |
This essay attempts to involve Eileen Chang and Roland Barthes in an encounter through the phenomenology of image in their looking at old photos. Leo Lee claims the “Eileen Chang creates a sense of mystery in a fabulous aesthetic context” in Looking at the Old Photos; however, the sense of Eileen Chang’s look is not a complete mystery. In my opinion, Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida provides a phenomenological approach for understanding the sense of mystery in Looking at the Old Photos. My comparison of these two books focuses on three main points. First, in the photographic gaze of Eileen Chang looking at herself, in Roland Barthes’ words, the unfamiliarity makes her have a multiple understanding of her countenance and gesture. Secondly, Camera Lucida develops the twin concepts of studium and punctum to explain the attraction of photos. These concepts apply as well to Eileen Chang’s habit of looking by which she always notices the details of clothing at first glance. Finally, just as Camera Lucida is a eulogy to Barthes’s late mother, Looking at the Old Photos can be taken as a eulogy Eileen Chang’ late mother and family members, as well. Roland Barthes and Eileen Chang both hold that the essence of a certain what has been can be revived by looking at photos. |