Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales is part of a literary tradition whose most important feature is its subversiveness. This subversion involves supernatural or fantastic elements in the creation of a temporary alternative world. The ensuing struggle between the real and the fantastic worlds is often embodied by a bourgeois heroine and an aristocratic male villain, respectively. The role of the heroine is pivotal to the plot for it is her survival that signals the defeat of a subversive alternative world. But what happens when the villain is a woman? Can her subversion be feminist in nature? The popularity and financial success of women writers of the Gothic means they could not have contradicted dominant views of gender. Yet, Dinesen's fiction demonstrates that subversion is indeed possible. A look at her life and her nonfiction works will facilitate an investigation into the subversive nature of her Gothic tales.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1990. / Bibliography: leaves 169-178.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 438-457).

艾薩卡•丹尼森 (Isak Dinesen) 的回憶錄《遠離非洲》(Out of Africa) 記載了她在英屬非洲殖民地──肯亞停留長達 17 年的心路歷程。在居留肯亞期間，丹尼森經營農場，並嘗試融入當地生活。然而，最後由於大自然災難衝擊，導致農場經營失敗，迫使她離去這個她賴以印證、再造自我的異地天堂。失意之餘，她在 1942 年重返丹麥，將這 17 年的經歷在回憶錄中娓娓道來。 本論文以雅克 • 德希達 (Jacques Derrida)「悅納異己」(hospitality) 的理論探討丹尼森的「虛構自我」(fictional I)──凱倫 • 布莉克森 (Karen Blixen) 在異地與他者相處的細節。她以客人的姿態進入肯亞，卻以農場主人的身份停留 17 年。由於身份的尷尬與模糊，使她自始至終都必須在罪惡感與焦慮中掙扎。這樣的模糊身份也直接影響了她身為農場主人所展現的待客之道。她一方面希望給予當地人「無條件待客之道」(unconditional hospitality)，但另一方面又礙於殖民情境下的種種因素，迫使她不得不實行「有條件待客之道」(conditional hospitality)。布莉克森的模糊身份、處在異地的心境，以及與他者相處的細節都和這兩種待客之道的更迭交替息息相關。 布莉克森的農場是個「交會區」(contact zone)，充滿不同文化的衝突與交融，也隱約存在著殖民情境下的階級氛圍。在此交會區中，布莉克森與農場上的當地人皆努力將其轉化為「安全地帶」(safe house)，以農場的合諧為最終目標，企圖弭平因文化差異而造成的緊張與衝突。在對於流亡白人的接待上，布莉克森又試圖將其轉化為德希達式的「新城市」(New City)，開放接受流亡到肯亞的白人。雖然最後「安全地帶」與「新城市」的理想都因農場經營的失敗告終，布莉克森的努力仍具有其價值；而理解殖民情境下種種理想的不可能性，也成為她旅行後的成長。 / Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, written in the beginning of the 20th century, is one of the modernist travel narratives which manifest the white settlers’ experiences in a foreign land. Dinesen spent 17 years of her prime time in Kenya, searching for a life answer only to find its ungraspability in the end. She returned to Denmark in 1942—a defeated homecoming—and rearranged her exotic experiences in the structure of a tragedy, a five-act play, and “telling a play” in front of her readers (Trousdale 171). With Jacques Derrida’s theory of hospitality, this thesis aims to trace how Blixen’s days in Kenya is characterized by her struggles over her own ambiguous identities as both the guest of the country and the host of the farm. As her stay in Kenya and her running of the farm are under the control of the colonial law, she hopes to compensate it with the unconditional hospitality to the Natives. However, under the colonial context, the hospitality she practices is constantly rendered conditional due to the possible problems dwelling in this “contact zone” (Pratt 6). Instead of focusing only on her possible imperial attempts in Kenya, this thesis hopes to explore more aspects of her role by tracing her interactions with the Natives. Although her farm is rifled with diverse cultural conflicts, Blixen strives to turn the contact zone into a “safe house,” a social space where all the members try to ignore the hierarchical system rooted prior to their encounters. She also tries to change it into a Derridian New City to welcome the white wanderers, and practice the two imperatives of hospitality in harmony. This ideal New City is an embodied projection of Blixen’s life pursuit as a colonial Odysseus, yet her struggles prove to be futile in the end. Dinesen’s act of writing—rearranging the memories in an elegiac tone—records her illusion in the beginning and her disillusionment in the end of the travel. Narcissistic as her ideal may seem, her efforts of bridging the cultural gaps and integrating with the native land cannot be ignored.