Poetzinger and Jones here (in their annotated bibliography) misread my analysis of the narrator’s ambivalence toward logocentrism (privilege of speech over writing) in Pamela. This ambivalence in Richardson displaces and destabilizes the binary opposition between speech and writing, displacement being the second step in Derrida’s “double writing.” But Poetzinger and Jones didn’t seem to get that point, although their introduction in the first paragraph indicates that writing, in my reading of the novel, is as “originary” as speech. As we know, in the logocentric tradition the binary opposition is clear: speech is one step closer to truth, and writing, in that tradition, is only a signifier of another signifier (speech) in its representation of truth (see my essay next in this folder). – John Zaixin Zhang, May 15, 2010
See their comments in the second paragraph below.
14 May 2010 http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/morillo/public/pambib.htm
Kim Poetzinger and Shawna Jones
Eng 563
3.8.10
Zhang, John Zaixin. "Free play in Samuel Richardson's Pamela." Papers on Language & Literature 27.3 (1991): 307-319. Print.
Zhang’s main argument in “Free play” is that through its epistolary style, Pamela negates the logocentric argument. The logocentric argument states that speech is more representative of truth than writing, because writing is only a secondary replica of speech. In other words, writing is less valuable as a representation of reality because it is removed from it. Zhang cites Jacques Derrida, who claims that the relationship between the actual, which he calls the “signified,” and the written word, which he calls the “signifier” is arbitrary, and that the supposed distance between them is also arbitrary. Zhang argues that there is a “free play” between the written word and reality in Pamela; because Pamela’s letters not only chronicle events, but influence them, her writing produces reality rather than imperfectly reflecting it. Pamela’s writing is not a skewed rendering of her reality; her letters allow her to create what Mr. B refers to as their own novel, shaping the events in Pamela’s life into a romance.
However, Zhang also claims that writing is debased in comparison with speech in Pamela, according to the logocentric tradition, contrary to his conclusion that Pamela nullifies logocentrism. In waffling between these two ideas, Zhang confuses the point he is trying to make. Further, his arguments for the discrediting of writing in Pamela are dubious; for example; he posits that the episode where Pamela writes questions for Mrs. Jewkes to answer aloud – in an effort to prove the innocence of her “scribbling’ -- debases writing because of the playful and unnecessary nature of the interaction. Alternatively, however, Pamela’s insistence on Mrs. Jewkes answering her questions out loud closes her out from the conspiracy Pamela creates within her writing. Pamela is forced to correspond through writing with Mr. Williams in an effort to escape her imprisonment, but cannot speak to him. Viewed in this light, Pamela’s game with Mrs. Jewkes hardly debases writing; speech, in this case, becomes facetious. While Zhang makes excellent points about how free play in Pamela negates the logocentric argument, he confuses his argument by including a contradictory theory with insufficient evidence.
评论