我是脑袋抽筋了找了这么一篇英文文献来翻译
Framed in the Gaze: Haze, Wise Blood, and Lacanian Reading
JAMES M. MELLARD
詹姆斯 M.梅拉德
While much goes on in the novel that might draw our attention, it is Asa Hawks who focuses the theme of gaze in ways most important for a Lacanian analysis. The Lacanian Zizek says that “the exemplary case of the gaze qua object is a blind man’s eyes, i.e., eyes which do not see”(117). Hawks illustrates this principle, for he shows that the gaze is not the eyes or, as Lacan says, “is not located just at the level of the eyes. The eyes may very well not appear, [or] they may be masked”(Seminar I 220). Hawks attracts Haze’s attention because his eyes are masked behind dark glasses and, so far as Haze understands, do not see at all. Hawks is a “fake blind man”(111) in O’Conner’s text, but his blindness is real enough to Haze until he discovers otherwise. Haze believes the man’s publicity, a yellowed newspaper clipping Hawks shows him telling how he got the scars on his face and, presumably, lost his vision. “The headline on the clipping said, EVANGELIST PROMISES TO BLIND SELF. The rest of it said that Asa Hawks, an evangelist of the Free Church of Christ, had promised to blind himself to justify his belief that Christ Jesus had redeemed him”(112).The story so enthralls Haze that he steals the clipping, little knowing, as O’Conner tells readers, that a follow-up story says, “EVANGELIST’S NERVE FAILS”(113). While Hawks indeed had streaked his face with lime and made the scars, he was unable to blind himself. But it is neither Hawks’s blindness nor his eyes as such that lure Haze to him. He is lured by what they signify – the gaze itself. “Generally speaking,” writes Lacan, “the relation between the gaze and what one wishes to see involves a lure. The subject is presented as other than he is, and what one shows him is not what he wished to see. It is in this way that the eye may function as objet a, that is to say, at the level of lack”(FFC 104). That lure is Hawks’s face, which Haze desires to look into, and those eyes that signify Haze’s lack, what he does not have, but wants. So the face and eyes are simply the screen that separates the visible and the invisible, the world of objects in which Haze exists and the world of desire into which he wishes to plunge. “He wanted to see, if he could, behind the black glasses”(145), O’Conner tells us, for no doubt he feels that there he will find what he wants, lacks, desires – the gaze itself, the gaze as Other, but , still, the gaze as “real,” a something in the world.
The paradox of Haze’s situation is that he longs for the gaze because he expects it to remove him from the world of objects and the gazes of others. But it is the gaze itself that makes him an object. “From the moment this gaze exists,” Lacan tells us, “I am already something other, in that I feel myself becoming an object for the gaze of others”(seminar I 215). That Haze feels himself such an object under the gaze of gaze of others is shown in his dreams. One (the “primal scene”) we have assessed already. Another dream occurs later and eventuates in Haze’s waking encounter with Hawks’s face when the eyes are unmasked. In this second dream-passage, O’Conner makes it plain that, despite Haze’s conviction his salvation lies in the Essex he drives, the boxlike car is as much a coffin as any other boxes the youth has encountered. It is just another box in which to suffer the stares of others and from which one must escape. Asleep in his car, Haze dreams of himself as among the living dead, “not dead but only buried,” and awaiting “nothing” (160). Buried there, he sees “Various eyes[looking] through the back oval window at his situation”(160). Just as Freud says dreams often will, this one attributes the eyes to the people with whom Haze had recently had contact, including Enoch Emery and the woman with the two little boys from the zoo. (in the dream, she offers himself sexual favor). But the one whom Haze desires to appear is Asa Hawks, for as signifier of the Other in Haze’s unconscious, Asa will have the power to free him. But “the blind man didn’t come” (161). So, awakening, Haze decides to go to the blind man. He still longs to see what lies behind Hawks’s dark glasses. What he finds is – precisely – nothing. Well, he finds eyes that see, but in the context of the meaning of the gaze they most certainly are not what he desires.
Hawks symbolizes the Other who, Haze believes, will anchor his existence for him. Haze believes Hawk has what Haze desires, the signifier of his redemption – the sign that he is redeemed, that he can be redeemed, that someone believes in the redeemer Haze tries to deny. That signifier is his very blindness, another screen on which Haze projects the phallus he lacks and desires. But the phallus, Lacan repeats constantly, can function only as veiled. Unveiled, it neither functions nor exists. So when Haze sees Hawks eyes unveiled, unmasked, no longer covered by the black glasses and returning his own gaze, that which Haze imputes to the older man suddenly disappears. The scene in which all this occurs exhibits the affective power of the primal scene, and as such seems to repeat the primal scene represented in the carnival episode. When he picks the lock to Hawks’s room, the bodily reaction O’Conner describes is out of proportion to the physical danger. “He stood up, trembling, and opened the door. His breath came short and his heart was palpitating as if he had run all the way here from a great distance”(161). When he reaches the spot in the room where Hawks sleeps, “Haze squatted down by him and struck a match close to his face and he opened his eyes. The two sets of eyes looked at each other as long as the match lasted”(162). But Haze does not find there what he desires. “Haze’s expression,” O’Conner tells us, “seemed to open onto a deeper blankness and reflect something and then close again”(162). Except for a momentary glimpse of something reflected, perhaps a point of light, he finds emptiness of the gaze itself, “the strange contingency, symbolic of what we find on the horizon,” “the thrust of our experience, namely the lack that constitutes castration anxiety”(FFC 72-73). In Haze panic ensues because, having invested his wholeness and autonomy in the blind man, he loses that investment.
JAMES M. MELLARD
詹姆斯 M.梅拉德
While much goes on in the novel that might draw our attention, it is Asa Hawks who focuses the theme of gaze in ways most important for a Lacanian analysis. The Lacanian Zizek says that “the exemplary case of the gaze qua object is a blind man’s eyes, i.e., eyes which do not see”(117). Hawks illustrates this principle, for he shows that the gaze is not the eyes or, as Lacan says, “is not located just at the level of the eyes. The eyes may very well not appear, [or] they may be masked”(Seminar I 220). Hawks attracts Haze’s attention because his eyes are masked behind dark glasses and, so far as Haze understands, do not see at all. Hawks is a “fake blind man”(111) in O’Conner’s text, but his blindness is real enough to Haze until he discovers otherwise. Haze believes the man’s publicity, a yellowed newspaper clipping Hawks shows him telling how he got the scars on his face and, presumably, lost his vision. “The headline on the clipping said, EVANGELIST PROMISES TO BLIND SELF. The rest of it said that Asa Hawks, an evangelist of the Free Church of Christ, had promised to blind himself to justify his belief that Christ Jesus had redeemed him”(112).The story so enthralls Haze that he steals the clipping, little knowing, as O’Conner tells readers, that a follow-up story says, “EVANGELIST’S NERVE FAILS”(113). While Hawks indeed had streaked his face with lime and made the scars, he was unable to blind himself. But it is neither Hawks’s blindness nor his eyes as such that lure Haze to him. He is lured by what they signify – the gaze itself. “Generally speaking,” writes Lacan, “the relation between the gaze and what one wishes to see involves a lure. The subject is presented as other than he is, and what one shows him is not what he wished to see. It is in this way that the eye may function as objet a, that is to say, at the level of lack”(FFC 104). That lure is Hawks’s face, which Haze desires to look into, and those eyes that signify Haze’s lack, what he does not have, but wants. So the face and eyes are simply the screen that separates the visible and the invisible, the world of objects in which Haze exists and the world of desire into which he wishes to plunge. “He wanted to see, if he could, behind the black glasses”(145), O’Conner tells us, for no doubt he feels that there he will find what he wants, lacks, desires – the gaze itself, the gaze as Other, but , still, the gaze as “real,” a something in the world.
The paradox of Haze’s situation is that he longs for the gaze because he expects it to remove him from the world of objects and the gazes of others. But it is the gaze itself that makes him an object. “From the moment this gaze exists,” Lacan tells us, “I am already something other, in that I feel myself becoming an object for the gaze of others”(seminar I 215). That Haze feels himself such an object under the gaze of gaze of others is shown in his dreams. One (the “primal scene”) we have assessed already. Another dream occurs later and eventuates in Haze’s waking encounter with Hawks’s face when the eyes are unmasked. In this second dream-passage, O’Conner makes it plain that, despite Haze’s conviction his salvation lies in the Essex he drives, the boxlike car is as much a coffin as any other boxes the youth has encountered. It is just another box in which to suffer the stares of others and from which one must escape. Asleep in his car, Haze dreams of himself as among the living dead, “not dead but only buried,” and awaiting “nothing” (160). Buried there, he sees “Various eyes[looking] through the back oval window at his situation”(160). Just as Freud says dreams often will, this one attributes the eyes to the people with whom Haze had recently had contact, including Enoch Emery and the woman with the two little boys from the zoo. (in the dream, she offers himself sexual favor). But the one whom Haze desires to appear is Asa Hawks, for as signifier of the Other in Haze’s unconscious, Asa will have the power to free him. But “the blind man didn’t come” (161). So, awakening, Haze decides to go to the blind man. He still longs to see what lies behind Hawks’s dark glasses. What he finds is – precisely – nothing. Well, he finds eyes that see, but in the context of the meaning of the gaze they most certainly are not what he desires.
Hawks symbolizes the Other who, Haze believes, will anchor his existence for him. Haze believes Hawk has what Haze desires, the signifier of his redemption – the sign that he is redeemed, that he can be redeemed, that someone believes in the redeemer Haze tries to deny. That signifier is his very blindness, another screen on which Haze projects the phallus he lacks and desires. But the phallus, Lacan repeats constantly, can function only as veiled. Unveiled, it neither functions nor exists. So when Haze sees Hawks eyes unveiled, unmasked, no longer covered by the black glasses and returning his own gaze, that which Haze imputes to the older man suddenly disappears. The scene in which all this occurs exhibits the affective power of the primal scene, and as such seems to repeat the primal scene represented in the carnival episode. When he picks the lock to Hawks’s room, the bodily reaction O’Conner describes is out of proportion to the physical danger. “He stood up, trembling, and opened the door. His breath came short and his heart was palpitating as if he had run all the way here from a great distance”(161). When he reaches the spot in the room where Hawks sleeps, “Haze squatted down by him and struck a match close to his face and he opened his eyes. The two sets of eyes looked at each other as long as the match lasted”(162). But Haze does not find there what he desires. “Haze’s expression,” O’Conner tells us, “seemed to open onto a deeper blankness and reflect something and then close again”(162). Except for a momentary glimpse of something reflected, perhaps a point of light, he finds emptiness of the gaze itself, “the strange contingency, symbolic of what we find on the horizon,” “the thrust of our experience, namely the lack that constitutes castration anxiety”(FFC 72-73). In Haze panic ensues because, having invested his wholeness and autonomy in the blind man, he loses that investment.
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