Haunting from within and beyond Memory: From Impossible to Possible Mourning in DeLillo's The Body Artist

來自與超越記憶的幽魂纏繞：德里羅《身體藝術家》中不可能與可能的哀悼

By enacting a dialogue between Don DeLillo's novella The Body Artist and Derrida's theories of memory and mourning, this study investigates DeLillo's innovative meditation on the work of mourning and the spectral influence of memory. Specifically, this paper analyzes, via DeLillo's text, the potential for rebuilding conversations and communions between self and other to overcome both the finitude of memory and the difficulty of mourning. Aiming for a mutual communion and reconnection between the living and the deceased, The Body Artist focuses on conversations between them through memories recalled from the form of a spectral figure. Embodying what Derrida terms ''memoirsfrom-beyond-the grave'' （Memoires 29| emphasis in original）, this ''specter'' helps the dead other articulate his memories and the survivor recall her memories of him, inaugurating her endeavor to finally understand him by reviewing his words again. This process eventually transcends the oppositions between inside and outside and self and other, through the ''mutual incorporation'' of the survivor, the dead other, and the specter. Furthermore, the spectral influence of memory also demonstrates the dead other's resistance to interiorization, thus leading the survivor to give the right to speak back to the other and to respect his infinite alterity. In this manner, according to both DeLillo and Derrida, true mourning comes to be possible. Exploring the dialectical inside-outside relation between memory and mourning, The Body Artist reveals the demands of the other and the way ''we are looked at by the other,'' even the dead other.

本文藉著對唐‧德里羅《身體藝術家》(2001)及德希達記憶與哀悼的理論對話，以針對記憶與哀悼的辯證關係進行思考。經由德里羅的文本，這篇論文擬深入探討自我與他者在哀悼過程中的對話關係，以試圖解決記憶的限制與哀悼的困境。《身體藝術家》為了探討生者與逝者之間的相互共處與再連結，以一位陌異的鬼魅角色保存、再現他們的記憶，並透過這些記憶使生者與逝者得到再互動的機會。再現了德希達所稱「踰越墳墓的記憶」，這位「鬼魅」不但幫助逝者表達記憶，更使生者回想起她與死者有關的記憶，並且由此開始尋求對死者的理解、重新傾聽他的話語。這個對彼此記憶相容相應的過程，最後經由生者—逝者—鬼魅三者間的「相互體內化」，展現了超越內／外與自／他對立的可能性。經由爬梳記憶與哀悼既內且外的辯證關係，德里羅進一步引出逝者對於被生者內化的反抗，以引領生者將話語權還給已逝的他者、並尊重其無可化約的他異性。於此，德里羅關注了他者的要求、以及我們與（已逝）他者的凝視關係。