This thesis argues that all subjects are constructed through discourse or ideology and are incapable of acting or thinking outside the limits of that discursive or ideological construction. Based on Louis Althusser¡¦s theory, ¡§individuals are always-already subjects,¡¨ living in ¡§the system of the ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group.¡¨ This Marxist notion serves as the point of departure for the thesis, which defines a subject¡¦s imaginary relation to the world. For Defoe and Swift, their ideological subjection to ¡§the system of the ideas and representations¡¨ is presented in their narratives, which relate the respective subject¡¦s imagination to the world in the eighteenth century.
The first chapter begins with Ian Watt¡¦s critique of the eighteenth century individualism, which demands domestic alienation. It argues that if Gulliver¡¦s misanthropy loses its moral dimension, his domestic alienation is questionable. As Gulliver¡¦s counterpart, Crusoe bases his autonomy upon nonreciprocal human relationships, and his self-claimed omnipotence, under constant threats, is false and illusory. The second chapter modifies Helene Moglen¡¦s dualistic interpretation of Crusoe¡¦s consciousness and analyzes his internal contradictions from the perspective of Hegelian dialectics. The course of establishing the colonial hierarchy in Robinson Crusoe further exposes the dialectical reality of colonial tension and contradiction, which also lends itself to interpreting the triangular relationships among the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver, and the Yahoos in Gulliver¡¦s Travels.
In the third chapter, the focus of concern shifts to the representation of sexual other. Though Roxana and Moll are constructed to emulate Crusoe and embody the female versions of economic autonomy, these two female-based narratives, Roxana and Moll Flanders, bring to light the paradoxes of eighteenth-century male subjectivity that discriminates men from women in terms of domesticity and individualism. While Roxana is further commodified to be enlisted in the service of imperialist ideology to mask the reality of colonial aggression and imperialist expansion, the same sleight of substitution also underlies Swift¡¦s systematic attacks on women in his Irish Tracts and misogynist poems. Lastly, the fourth chapter aims to bring these two categories of difference together. Through Swift¡¦s and Defoe¡¦s imagination, the racial other and their sexual counterpart enter into a metaphorical alliance. Thus Defoe¡¦s Amazon and Swift¡¦s Yahoo trope not only synthesize what are considered two discrete and separate categories of discrimination, but also demonstrate that their creations of race and gender derive from the same source of reference.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0911107-161906 |
| Date | 11 September 2007 |
| Creators | Shih, Yao-hsi |
| Contributors | none, none, none, none, none |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0911107-161906 |
| Rights | not_available, Copyright information available at source archive |
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