Thesis (Ph.D.)--Queen's University, 1999. / Cover title. Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-282). Also available in electronic form via the World Wide Web.

The study is limited to a survey of the gift-wrapping departments of selected stores in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Denton.

在亨利‧詹姆士（Henry James）的小說《鴿之翼》（The Wings of the Dove, 1902）中，金錢在人際關係中的流動以及其所產生的交換方式往往為批評家們所忽略。許多批評家將小說中的角色視為兩種極端：以凱特為代表的倫敦人是剝削者；美國女孩米莉則是天真無邪的犧牲者。而注意到小說中交換議題的批評家，也多半以市場交易的模式來看待小說中的交換行為。有別於以往的研究，本論文嘗試以「禮物」的理論，為小說中的交換提供一種新的觀點。 / 法國人類學家牟斯（Marcel Mauss）的理論顯示，禮物贈與牽涉到社會關係的建立與經濟層面的交流。然而牟斯的理論亦顯示出禮物的矛盾：禮物並非單向的贈與，而是送／收禮物的主體之間的互惠交換行為。同樣的，《鴿之翼》中的金錢交換也是以此種送／收禮物的方式來達成。小說中的禮物交換與角色對金錢的追求呼應，形成一個禮物交換的體系。本論文首先討論小說中的交換者進行交換的方式，突顯其用以掩飾禮物矛盾的包裝策略。其次，本論文討論禮物交換的時間結構如何對送禮者與收禮者產生不同的影響，使米莉的回禮得以藉由時間的運用，產生諧擬（parody）的效果，進而展示了凱特所代表的倫敦人所遵從的交換原則有何限制。 / 在《鴿之翼》中，禮物不斷游移於慷慨與私利的兩端，而此種介於經濟與非經濟之間的交換方式，正是禮物有別於商品，並能夠暗渡實質利益的原因。 / In The Wings of the Dove (1902), Henry James presents a flow of money in interpersonal relations from which a distinctive mode of exchange is derived. However, the issue of exchange does not arouse much discussion among the critics on James. Some critics tend to read the two heroines as representatives of moral oppositions—Kate and other Londoners as exploiters, the young American Milly as a victim. Although there are other critics who notice the exchanges in this novel, most of them choose to approach the issue with the mode of exchange in the market. Differing from these critical perspectives, in which the characters’ exchanges are taken as transforming or reflecting transactions of commodities, this thesis analyzes The Wings of the Dove in terms of gift giving and gift returning. / As the work of the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss shows, gift giving is not only a way to construct social relations but also a part of an economic circulation. But a paradox of the gift can also be observed from Mauss’s theory of the gift—the paradox that gift giving appears as a liberal offer but initiates an exchange of gifts by obligating the gift receiver to return. / What this thesis aims to explore with the theories of the gift is whether it is effective for the characters in The Wings of the Dove to exchange money for social resources, and vice versa. The exchanges in this novel, working alongside the Londoners’ quest for money, constitute a system of gift exchange that brings about Kate’s scheme to reap money from Milly. To look into the problems created from this mode of exchange, the thesis will further be committed to the discussions on the characters’ strategies which help them conceal the paradox of the gift, as well as their actions and limitations in the temporal structure of the gift exchange. Ultimately, this thesis attempts to show the capriciousness of the gift revealed in the exchanges in The Wings of the Dove. In constant fluctuations, the gift never ceases to oscillate between the dichotomies of the economic and the noneconomic, which not only shows its elasticity but also offers a space for discussions of its logic from various critical angles.