近畿大学学術情報リポジトリ

全文

(1)文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. The Ghost and Aﬀective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s Kiyofumi Sugiura 1．Introduction Jean Rhys published. in 1928,1 after she had ended a protracted. affair with Ford Madox Ford, an editor of , which highlighted young artists with great talent, such as D. H. Lawrence and Wyndham Lewis. Ford recognised Rhys s gifts as a writer: on December 1924, he introduced Vienne , one of Rhys s short stories, in . It would not be overstating the case to say that Ford turned around Rhys s life. But Rhys gradually became weary of Ford towards the end of the affair. For Rhys, the publication of. seems to show her. vengeance against Ford, as shown in Carol Angier s biography of Rhys: ［Rhys］ was writing. in anger and revenge .2. Here, it is also interesting to direct attention to Judith Kegan Gardiner s argument that ［t］he four main characters of. recall those of. . On this point, it could be assumed that Rhys exposed in 3. adulterous affair with Ford by appropriating his. the. , a novel that. tragically looks at distraught affairs among higher - class people. At any rate, we can consider. as an autobiographical work, which sheds interesting light. upon some aspects of the extramarital love between Rhys and Ford. However, can. be considered solely as an autobiographical novel? In. general, the heroines of Rhys s novel are apt to be connected to Jean Rhys herself, but this reductive approach has most obviously and persistently influenced the explications of. . Protagonists in the novel tend to be. considered as real rather than fictional persons: Marya is. −140−. ; Heidler is. （ 69 ）.

(2) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. ; Louis is. ; and Stephan is. Sugiura. .4 We might. say that the nosier readers and scholars, who take great interest in the affair between Rhys and Ford, are the more likely to be in favour of this reductive reading of. . For example, in. （2005）, Joseph Wiesenfarth attempts to reveal Ford s relationship with 5. Rhys. However, Wiesenfarth seems to rely too heavily upon the assumption that Rhys s novels are autobiographical works. Eventually, Wiesenfarth implies his agreement with Ford s suggestion that the Jean Rhys of less than a drunken, nymphomanical liar .. 6. But is. is nothing nothing but a. rodomontade or pathological novel? An excessively autobiographical reading of the novel can hamper our attempts to appreciate the social, political criticism at work in the text. But, before all, in reading. , what is of importance is to realise that. the narrative of the novel conducts a work of mourning for. Marya. In. short, the narrative responsibly mourns over the lost other of androcentric society: she is ruthlessly excluded in the androcentric society; her identity is always ruptured. she is nothing but a. portrays Marya as the. there. Conclusively,. mournfully. . However, it is also important to note that its. mournful narrative is always accompanied with a sense of melancholia. But does this mean that. develops a fundamentally pessimistic and pathological. narrative, and no more? In deliberating over the mournful narrative of. ,. we may be at loss to account for, in particular, Marya s melancholia: Marya persistently and masochistically leans upon men as her support only to be ultimately betrayed by them. Critics of. have always emphasised the. melancholic disposition of Marya. However, this emphasis often falls into a tendency to characterise Marya simply as a passive, pathological subjectivity. Elgin W. Mellown s reading of Rhys s work has proved to exert considerable influence upon subsequent Rhys scholars. Mellow notes that ［t］here is never an escape for the Rhys heroine: happiness is always followed by sadness, and her. （ 70 ）. −139−.

(3) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. last state is always worse than her first .7 To this extent, Marya might be one of the most archetypal protagonists of all of Rhys s novels. However, Mellown s argument classifies Rhys s women in a way that demands further scrutiny; it seems to repeat consciously or unconsciously the stereotyped discourses of Freudian psychoanalysis, which defines melancholia as a form of mental disease, especially peculiar to women. Moreover, this brand of Rhys criticism still continues, comparatively uncritically, to rely upon autobiographical materials, as Helen Carr points out:. Jean Rhys s fiction has been read as the retelling through her heroines of her own melancholy tale of defeat, whether this defeat is judged to be at the hands of callous men or the result of her own apathetic ineptitude.8. However, Carr criticises this trend of criticism for the way that it has occluded the crucial political dimension of her work ;9 and Carr points out that the melancholic atmosphere in Rhys s novels is a result of her irony, wit and satire ,10 in which an implicit but effective social critique is produced. Cathleen Maslen s 2009 study, ,11 similarly re - considers this aspect of Rhys s work. Carefully returning to the canonical Western concept of melancholia, Maslen argues that Rhys s writerly enterprise demands our respect and empathy in that she strives to facilitate a. of the suffering of marginalised. woman .. Following Maslen s argument, we can say that the narrative strategy. of. continuously conducts the. 12. of the suffering of marginalised. woman , who falls into a severe state of melancholy in an androcentric society. As Maslen aptly sates, ［i］n attempting to dignify her psycho - sexual pain through certain traditions of melancholic. , such as the elevation of sexual. disappointment to sublime anguish, Marya claims an implicitly masculine. −138−. （ 71 ）.

(4) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Sugiura. privilege .13 In other words, Marya s exhibition of melancholia does not always reflect the kind of morbid disposition that is conventionally associated with melancholia, which is so simply but ideologically influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis. In effect, the mournful narrative of. , which is haunted by. a powerful melancholy, does not always reflect a pessimistic or pathological disposition. The object of this paper is, therefore, to articulate the strategy of the mournful but melancholic narrative in. . But this strategy will need to be. carefully explored in order to uncover the representation of the. in the. novel. First of all, it is clear that we must re - consider the Freudian notion of mourning and melancholia. In this connection, we will take particular note of the meaningful re - writings of the notion of mourning and melancholia undertaken by Jacques Derrida, Ranjana Khanna, and Homi Bhabha. Ultimately, this paper will demonstrate the narrative strategy of an ethical negotiation with the. , a strategy that is involved in. other and develops a rich social critique.. 2．Mourning and Melancholia Above all things, in order to deliver an effective examination of the narrative of. , we need to re - consider the conventional idea concerning mourning. and melancholia, an idea that still finds its most influential articulation in Freudian psychoanalysis. In Mourning and Melancholia , Freud distinguishes mourning from melancholia. According to Freud, mourning is a normal, healthy process; melancholia, on the other hand, is pathological. Freud also indicates that mourning is the is. process of recovery from a loss of the other, whereas melancholia . Freud explains:. Mourning is regularly the reaction to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as one s country, liberty, an ideal, and so on. In some people the same. （ 72 ）. −137−.

(5) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. influences. produce. melancholia. instead. of. mourning. and. we. consequently suspect them of a pathological disposition. It is also well worth notice that, although mourning involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a pathological condition and to refer it to medical treatment.14. Freud argues that, if we lose a loved object, we can not easily forget it for the reason that there is an understandable opposition , as people never willingly abandon a libidinal position, not even, indeed, when a substitute is already beckoning to them .15 According to Freud, normal persons, in general, would obey respect for reality .16 They need some time to assimilate the loss of an object. Nonetheless, as Freud explains, in the case of normal persons, when the work of mourning is completed the ego becomes free and uninhibited again .17 In melancholia, on the other hand, the subject knows. he has lost but not. he has lost in him . Freud asserts: 18. This would suggest that melancholia is in some way related to an object - loss which is withdrawn from consciousness, in contradistinction to mourning, in which there is nothing about the loss that is unconscious.19. Basically, melancholia is obsessed by the shadow of the object. For instance, Maslen points out that Freud imagines melancholia as a distinctive psychic space a haunted space, darkened by the ghost or shadow of the object that is no longer accessible .20 Here, we will have good grounds for thinking that the melancholic subject keeps the. object, which blurs the lines between. existence and absence. But we must realise that, for Freud, melancholia is no more than the pathological disposition, which points to the failure of mourning.. −136−. （ 73 ）.

(6) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Contrary to Freud, Derrida focuses on the. Sugiura. between. mourning and melancholia, as in the following passage:. Mourning is an interiorization of the dead other, but it is also the contrary. Hence the impossibility of completing one s mourning and even the will not to mourn are also forms of fidelity. If to mourn and not to mourn are two forms of fidelity and two forms of infidelity, the only thing remaining. and this is where I speak of semi - mourning. is an. experience between the two.. 21. Nicholas Royle explains, in relation to this point, that Derrida sees fissures in the psychoanalytic conception of mourning, in particular in Freud s apparently rigid notion of normal mourning. For Freud, there is normal mourning and this is something that comes to an end. The work of mourning is teleological .22 In other words, for Derrida, the work of and impossible;. 23. mourning is interminable , inconsolable ,. it is to experience a double - bind. if we could internalise the. dead person, he/she would be buried in complete oblivion, and would be valueless for us. Royle explains that for Derrida ［a］refusal to mourn（which in a conventional psychoanalytic description is identified with abnormal mourning）is ［…］an inseparable part of mourning .24 Derrida argues: I cannot complete my mourning for everything I lose, because I want to keep it, and at the same time, what I do best is to mourn, is to lose it, because by mourning, I keep it inside me .25 For Derrida, works at the work of mourning are to experience the of doing it.26 Derrida s notion of. mourning does not lead us to the forgetting. of the loss of the other. Deconstructive mourning impels us to keep on remembering and to continue to think of the other. The work opens up the future; in other words, it implies the invitation of a justice . Derrida says:. （ 74 ）. −135−.

(7) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. A mourning in fact and by right interminable, without possible normality, without reliable limit, in its reality or in its concept, between introjection and incorporation. But the same logic, as we suggested, responds to the injunction of a justice which, beyond right or law, rises up in the very respect owed to whoever is not, no longer or not yet, living, presently living.27. In this way, Derrida points to, above all, the. of the distinction. between mourning and melancholia; and he intimates that. mourning,. the process of coming terms with the pain of the loss of the loved other, is often retarded by repetitive returns of melancholia as the work of mourning, a work that continually retains the pain and suffering of the loss. In effect, even if it is painful, this work of mourning has an unlimited potential in relation to the advent of a justice , continually engaging in dialogue with the other as the. that is uncannily wandering the boundary between the living. and the dead in our memory. We will have to direct attention to the Freudian notion of melancholia so as to further think through the. between mourning and melancholia.. Is melancholia, in nature, neither more nor less than a pathological symptom, as Freud assumes? Furthermore, does it mean that the. work of. mourning, which is often accompanied with melancholia, is anything but pathological? Melancholia cannot be completely explained from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis. Of course, we should remember that, in Ego and Id , Freud critically re - examines his notion of melancholia, but, as Khanna points out, Freud could not resolve his notion of melancholia entirely his career .28 Khanna has taken, in effect, a position against Freud s theory of melancholia:. While melancholia is more often than not considered to be a disabling affect. Freud, for example, discusses the impoverishment of the ego. −134−. （ 75 ）.

(8) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. in melancholia. Sugiura. it implicitly provides, I propose, an ethico - political. gesture toward the future.29. For Khanna, melancholia means an ethico - political gesture toward the future , a gesture that is associated with, in Derrida s term, a justice for the future. Critically enlarging and deepening Freud s concept of melancholia, Khanna argues that melancholia produces a scathing critique of social systems of control: ［…］the critical agency proposed by Freud as endemic to melancholia provides an interesting counter to the hegemonic super - ego in which critical agency is assimilated into social mechanisms of control ;30 and what is more, Khanna continues to say: Unable to recognize what it is, the ego swallows it whole, and begins to split in relation to it. Critical agency develops as the subject starts criticizing the swallowed object, and this symptom appears as self - critique .31 As Khanna suggests, the continual self - reflection or self - criticism for the object leads, in an effective and enduring manner, to the fertile production of a new critical agency. Incidentally, Freud s argument seems to hold fast to the logic of Its logic tends to ruthlessly condemn alien objects as objects, such as a as. .. ; and. object that cannot be laid to rest, should be identified. . In this way, Freud, who is obsessed by the logic of n. deliberately attempts to suspend the exploration of the. ,. object, looking. towards the dichotomy of normal（sane）and pathological or abnormal（insane）, a dichotomy that builds the solid foundations of the logic of. . Freud s. theory of melancholia, which has strong ideological underpinnings, moves towards a forgetting the. object. Conversely, Khanna critically extends. Freudian melancholia to political and cultural spheres: she looks upon melancholia as something capable of producing a new critical agency, vehemently refusing to consign the. object to oblivion.. Bhabha s analysis of melancholia should not be overlooked: it stresses the. （ 76 ）. −133−.

(9) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. political dimension of melancholia; in other words, Bhabha appreciates, as Craig J. Saper indicates, Frantz Fanon s argument about the colonized people s efforts to create a symbolic space and Derrida s notion of the encrypted piece of discourse that cannot be incorporated or mourned fully .32 For Bhabha, melancholia does not always imply a pessimistic disposition; eventually, focusing on a mental constellation of revolt ,33 which comes from the melancholic discourse, Bhabha asserts the following:. This inversion of meaning and address in the melancholic discourse when it incorporates the loss or lack in its own body, displaying its own weeping wounds. is also an act of disincorporating the. authority of the Master.. 34. These powerful re - articulations of the Freudian notion of mourning and melancholia by Derrida, Khanna, and Bhabha will be instructive in re - considering the. narrative of. , in which the. mourning is. inevitably infringed upon by a melancholia that uncannily leads to mourning. However, this idea of melancholia does not always describe a pathological disposition: through re - reading. , the paradox of Freudian. concept of mourning and melancholia will be exposed; and the seminal narrative strategy of the novel can come to light. The narrative of. reflects the. absorbing interaction between, in Freud s term, mourning and melancholia, as its narrative responsibly conducts the perpetual remembering of the the end, through such an. ,. , and. other. In. strategy, the narrative of. fruitfully anticipates the liberatory promise of the future, so effectively producing a social critique of masculine authority.. 3．Melancholic Affectation To begin with, it should be noted that forms of melancholia are also. −132−. （ 77 ）.

(10) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. presented, in. Sugiura. , by Heidler, Lois and Stephan, as well as Marya, so. significantly explaining another important feature of melancholia. Khanna draws a distinction between the example, states:. of melancholia and an. . Khanna, for. My concern with melancholia ［…］ is about the. melancholia rather than about an Khanna, melancholic. 35. of. （My emphasis）. According to. converges with the irresponsible rejection of the. process of self - critique or self - exploration, exploiting the normative gesture , alibi or palliative ; in contrast to this, Khanna subtly theorises the. of. melancholia as a process of conscientious generation of social criticism. Khanna s 36. provocative definition of melancholia will be of much consequence in more closely reading. .. Like Marya, Heidler and Lois suffer from a kind of melancholia, but their melancholy, on many occasions, tends to evolve into a melancholic is differentiated from the. that. of melancholia, which would be accompanied by a. responsible and continuous self - criticism. In Heidler s game , Marya is no better than such a marionette （ , 82） , like Antoinette in. : Marya is. cruelly marginalised by a male - dominated way of thinking. However, according to Marya, Heidler and Lois are also like marionettes that are manipulated by the androcentric game : ［Marya］had felt like a marionette, as though something outside her were jerking strings that forced her to scream and strike. Heidler, weeping, was a marionette, too. And Lois, anxious - eyed, in her purple dressing gown （. 82） .. However, we should also consider Heidler s following remark:. Well, I m sick of myself, Heidler said gloomily, And yet it goes on. One knows that the whole damn thing s idiotic, futile, not even pleasant, but one goes on. One s caught in a sort of trap, I suppose.（ , 53）. No matter what happens, his life goes on; and it appears to be one of those. （ 78 ）. −131−.

(11) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. things. something we cannot control. For him, the best he can do is to. acknowledge the trap of such a destiny. Here, Heidler seems to give a melancholy look to his life, but, in fact, we are not sure whether his melancholy itself is true. For Heidler does not attempt to show his real intention. That fact can also be appreciated from Marya s impression on the Heidlers: Of course, there they were: inscrutable people, invulnerable people, and she simply hadn t a chance against them, naïve sinner that she was （ , 79）. Furthermore, in a related matter, it is of great significance here to notice the fact that the above remark of Heidler implies the whole picture of his androcentric. game. that. hypocritical. androcentric. goes on. Marya was entrapped by the love game . In the game, Heidler self - deceivingly. goes on performing a man ; that is to say, he attempts to play a masculine role in his own game by all possible means. as we see later, he can approach even. God . Accordingly, he tries to trap Marya into admitting that she cannot do anything in his game . In this connection, even if he develops a melancholy attitude in his game , its attitude is more likely to be an continue his male - centred game. in order to. Heilder tactically lays a trap for Marya in. his game . In the same way, we must carefully re - examine Lois s melancholia, too. It seems that Lois, like Marya, is also, in a sense, manoeuvred within Heidler s game ; in other words, Lois is a victim of the androcentric game : Marya wondered how she could ever have thought Lois hard. This soft creature, this fellow - woman, hurt and bewildered by life even as she was （ , 43） . Lois at least feels social inequality, largely a function of her status as a woman. However, Lois tries to become a lady , the species wife . Lois, for example, says that. I. don t think women ought to make nuisances of themselves. I don t make a nuisance of myself; I grin and bear it, and I think that other women ought to grin and bear it, too （ , 76） . Eventually, for Lois, the androcentric society cannot be avoided; that is to say, she is generally obsessed by nothing but melancholic. −130−. （ 79 ）.

(12) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Sugiura. which tends to postpone her self - critique, disallowing for the process of self - reflection upon her complicity with male - centred ways of thinking. By the same token, we should not forget that Stephan, who is in prison, also suffers from a melancholic disposition. Sylvie Maurel points out that ［Stephan］is much more so as a metaphor of Marya s entrapment than as the betrayed husband .37 However, after that, Maurel continues to state as follows:. ［O］ne has to draw a line between Stephan s imprisonment and hers, for Stephan is soon to be liberated, while Marya s emancipation is not on the agenda. On the contrary, the narrative, as it unfolds, shows a marked tendency towards restricting the heroine s options.38. After he learns of Marya s affair with Heidler, Stephan reacts furiously; and he shoves Marya away: ［Stephan］caught［Marya］by the shoulders and swung her sideways with all his force. As she fell, she struck her forehead against the edge of the table, crumpled up and lay still （ , 143）. Then, Stephan said: （ , 143）; and shortly afterwards, ［h］e straightened his tie carefully, put on his hat and went out of the room without looking behind him （ , 143）. In view of this, his gesture alludes to a process of becoming man ; in short, it suggests the process of the collusion with the way of thinking of androcentrism: after the quarrel with Marya, Stephan leaves the room. After that, Stephan sees Mademoiselle Chardin, and says:. （ , 144）. His remark, to. some degree, points to the androcentric perspective; at last, he concludes that ［…］women seemed to him loathsome, horrible. soft and disgusting weights. suspended round the necks of men, dragging them downwards （ , 144）. Heidler, Lois, and Stephan frequently quell their substantial dissonance, using the disguises, in Khanna s terms, of alibis. and. palliatives . They attempt to set aside their self - criticism, and. maintain the status quo of androcentric social systems.. （ 80 ）. normative gestures ,. −129−. speaks of the.

(13) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. dangers of a melancholia that becomes a mode of disposing of self - critique, absorbed within a process of self - critical. .. 4．The Affect of Melancholia and the Ghost Occasionally,. represents the repetitive, productive process of. Marya s self - criticism or self - reflection. its process avoids self - critical. . But, first of all, in more deeply re - examining Marya s self - criticism, the trope of the. in. should be meticulously examined. Marya s. identity is frequently disturbed, roving over the boundary between existence and absence; and eventually, she frequently feels herself to be a. Marya. falls into the melancholy after the arrest of her husband Stephan: she is lonely and has no one to depend upon. Then, Marya meets the Heidlers; they encourage her to live with them. But Marya is unable to conceal her anxieties in the face of an uncertain future. especially with the Heidlers. Consider the scene where. Marya, who is in a state of her heightened anxiety, is on the way to the Heidlers flat: ［Marya and Lois］passed the deserted entrance of the Bal Bullier and the coloured lights of the Closerie des Lilas, and crossed the street into the dimness of the Avenue de l Observatoire, where the tops of the trees vanished, , in the mist （ , 40, My emphasis）. Marya feels more and more empty inside; she gradually develops a bears a marked similarity to Marya s. identity. The. cityscape. Marya; in short, its cityscape alludes to. identity that will be created in her later life with Mr. and Mrs.. Heidler. Accordingly, Heidler forces his attentions upon Marya; she drifts along towards tragedy by being associated with Heidler. Marya is gradually pushed to the wall, and occasionally finds herself a gray. walking in a vague, shadowy. world （ , 46, My emphasis）. One day, Marya, who is oppressed with anxiety over the uncertainty of her future, sees the merry - go - rounds at the Lion de Belfort fair . However, the merry - go - rounds imply that Heidler s game will constrain Marya s freedom in. −128−. （ 81 ）.

(14) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Sugiura. the future:. ［Marya］came out of the café and stood for several minutes looking at the Lion de Belfort fair. the booths, the swings, the crowds of people. jostling each other in a white glare of light to the gay, metallic music of the merry - go - rounds.（ , 38）. The metallic music of the merry - go - rounds intimates Heidler s love. game , in which Marya. feels a mixture of emotions. For. example, Marya thinks: Little wheels in her head that turned perpetually. I love ［Heidler］. I want him. I hate［Lois］. And he s a swine. He s out to hurt me. What shall I do? I love him. I want him. I hate her （ , 97）. Unfortunately, Marya, on occasion, accepts things as they are. Marya goes again to prison to see Stephan; and Marya tells him that the Heidlers encourages her to stay with them. Then, Stefan, who is in the dark about Marya s confused feelings, says:. Well, if she s as kind as all that, why don t you want to stay with. her? You must go, Mado; it seems to me so much the best thing for you to do. Look here, you must go （ , 46）. After that, Marya watches a little frail, blonde girl , innocently frolicking about on the merry - go - round , playing a song . At that moment, Marya puts some of her future s life into the girl; and she dispels. dissonance. Marya attempts to feel that she is not the. :. There was a merry - go - round at the Porte d Orléans where the tram stopped. Children were being hoisted on to the backs of the gaily painted wooden horses. Then the music started to clank:. .. And the horses pranced around, pawing the air in a mettlesome way. Marya stayed there for a long time watching a little frail, blonde girl ［…］ . The merry - go - round made her feel more normal, less like a. （ 82 ）. −127−.

(15) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. grey ghost walking in a vague, shadowy world.（ , 46）. “The merry - go - round made her feel normal, less like a grey ghost walking in a vague, shadowy world. this passage implies that Marya tries to follow Heidler. s love game , though she knows that Heidler hurts her. In the long run, Marya, who despairs of her future, comes to love and depend upon Heidler. Marya is no longer. , but, in return, she will have to obey the man - centred thinking of. Heidler. However, can we say that Marya foolishly accepts the proposal of Heidler? As noted above, it certainly may be that Marya is moved by the buzzing wheels of Heidler s love game , which conjure up the image of the merry-go - round . Nonetheless, it will still be unwise to conclude that Marya suffers a lapse of critical faculties and accepts Heidler s rule of the love game . Finding herself in dire straits, Marya, who feels so melancholy, still continues to conduct self - reflection or self - criticism:. ［Marya］asked［Heidler］if he really imagined she could live there between them. And as she asked it, she thought: I wonder how many times I ve said that. A vain. , that s what it is. A vain. .（ , 78 - 79, My emphasis）. Here, Marya feels strongly against Heidler s game that is so like the merry - go - around . Marya cannot dispel some feelings of incongruity towards the Heidlers; and accordingly, Marya, who is involved in Heidler s. game , conducts self - reflection and self - criticism with a look of. melancholy. It is also important to remember that Marya reads a sign of snobbery in the Heidlers behaviour. Consider Marya s impression of the party, which the Heidlers often hold. For Heidler and Lois, the party is a space in which their. −126−. （ 83 ）.

(16) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. snobbish. Sugiura. can be spectacularly performed. In the party, Marya pierces. the disguise of the Heidlers; in particular, she comes to detest the hierarchy in the party.39 While Marya sometimes ［feels］a definite sensation of warmth and pleasure （ , 50）at the party, she cannot drive off her melancholy there, seeing the Heidlers and the others who are gathered there in the following terms:. ［…］everyone seemed so efficient, so up and doing, so full of That Important Feeling and everything. even sin. was an affair of. principle and uplift if you were an American, and of proving conclusively that you belonged to the upper classes, but were nevertheless an anarchist, if you were English. The women were long - necked and very intelligent and they would get into corners and say simple, truthful things about each other. Sometimes they were both intelligent and wealthy and would come to Montparnasse seeking cheap but effective protégés（ , 49 - 50）.. Marya feels strangely at a loss （ , 49） . For Marya, the party is nothing but a negative place, in which the richer class of people always try to mask their real intentions. Marya feels somewhat out of place with the Heidlers and those who are crowding round them. Marya s. feelings become more powerful;. that is to say, she gradually becomes. . Ultimately, Marya has a very. positive response to all the people who never went to tea - parties or gave them , to everybody, in fact, who was utterly unlike the Heidlers （ , 98）; in short, Marya has a sense of closeness towards the social under - dog （ , 85）. We will recognise now that the repetition of self - critical melancholia within the narrative of. , understood through the. identity of Marya, is. not just pathological. From the perspective of the social under - dog , to borrow Khanna s words, Marya s melancholia initiates and in fact finds its symptoms within a constant vigilance concerning palliative, alibis, and easy complicit and. （ 84 ）. −125−.

(17) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. compromised gestures of sanctimonious novelty or liberalism .40. 5．The Perpetual Dialogue with the Ghost The narrative of a. then, maintains the melancholic voice of Marya as. other, so responsibly. the cruel nature of Heidler s love. game . For Heidler, love is nothing other than a game , a view based on his androcentric philosophy and consistent with his. . But how could. Heidler s philosophy be justified? Intriguingly, his philosophy somewhat reflects Immanuel Kant s notion of. the categorical imperative. perceived as the. universal, absolute moral law. In considering Heidler s philosophy, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak s subtle anatomy of the categorical imperative will be highly instructive. Spivak focuses on the following view of Kant: Everything in creation which he ［man］ wishes and over which he has power can be used merely as a means; only man, and, it with him, every rational creature, is an end in itself .41 In this respect,. the categorical imperative. does not include all. creatures but just every rational creature ; in other words, the categorical imperative is built in a body of philosophical thought that has consideration for . The. categorical imperative , needless to say, is deeply rooted in. Eurocentric thinking. In value of excitable. , Heidler s thinking has roots in the perceived. . For Heidler, Lois is, in a sense, reasonable person; contrariwise, Marya is too emotional. not an. so excitable. a. person. Herein, Marya is, contrary to Lois, not adequate to Heidler s game. All the more, Heidler must domesticate Marya. for it is reasonable behaviour. that Heidler needs in his love game:. My dear, he remarked, you don t understand Lois. Don t I? asked Marya.. Not a bit. Lois,. he went on, speaking carefully and. persuasively, is not an excitable person. I ve gathered that much, remarked Marya dryly. You are so excitable yourself, declared. −124−. （ 85 ）.

(18) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Sugiura. Heidler. You tear yourself to pieces over everything and, of course, your fantastic existence has made you worse.（ , 61）. What is more, we will realise that, in his love game, Heidler s command as the categorical imperative is eerily reduced to Christian ethics. For instance, Heidler is symbolised as. God :. God s a pal of mine, ［Heidler］ said. He. probably looks rather like me, with cold eyes and fattish hands. I m in His image or He s in mine. It s all one［…］（ , 125）. Heidler s command has been oddly associated with Christian ethics. Now, we must return again to Spivak s examination of Kant s categorical imperative . Spivak dissects a moving displacement of Christian ethics from religion to philosophy ,42 so carefully re - considering the argument of Kant: The possibility of such a command as, Love God above all and thy neighbour as thyself , resonates well ［ requires attention［. ］ with this. For, as a command, it ］to a law which orders love and does not leave it to. arbitrary choice to make love the principle .43 In. , we find a morbid. collusion between Christian ethics, held with a tone of philosophy of Heidler, supported by. . Indeed, in his love. , and the game , the. Christian theme Love God above all and thy neighbour as thyself looms large before Marya: Heidler bends Marya to his will. Before anything else, Marya has to respect God - like Heidler; therewith, she also has to respect his wife Lois as her neighbour. On this point, we can apply just as much to Heidler s perspective concerning love as to Spivak s argument: love does not depend on the freedom of choice .44 Marya is not entitled to her freedom of choice in Heidle s love game. For her, Heidler s love is a sort of law that she has to unconditionally obey. And furthermore, we must remember that Heidler s command as. the. categorical imperative is displaced to a rule of imperialism, as Spivak points out: ［…］the case of the categorical imperative can justify the imperialist project by producing the following formula: make the heathen into a human so that he can. （ 86 ）. −123−.

(19) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. be treated as an end in himself; in the interest of admitting the raw man into the noumenon［…］.45. also. the imperialistic characteristics within. Heidler s command. Marya, for example, says: Heidler Victoria sometimes （ , 90）. In this light,. really is like Queen. Queen Victoria. symbolises the. heyday of British colonialism; in a nutshell, the relation of tension between the colonised and coloniser brings back the picture of the bizarre relation between Marya and Heidler: he looks upon her as ［s］avage （ , 90）. Eventually, the Eurocentric command of Heidler is bizarrely translated into the philosophy of the Enlightenment, as follows:. Her head had dropped backwards over the edge of the bed and from that angle her face seemed strange to him: the cheek - bones looked higher and more prominent, the nostrils wider, the lips thicker. A strange little Kalmuck face. He whispered: Open your eyes, savage. Open your eyes, savage. She opened her eyes and said: I love you, I love you, I love you. Oh, please be nice to me. Oh, please say something nice to me. I love you.（ , 102）. Marya is also subject to Heidler s command as. . Heidler attempts to. domesticate Marya, who is so excitable and savage . We can. here his. inhuman and atrocious conducts; its self - deceiving conduct is coercively justified by the Eurocentric formula that make［s］the heathen into a human so that he can be treated as an end in himself; in the interest of admitting the raw man into the noumenon .46 In this context, we can admit Carol Dell Amico s argument that the centrality of psychological and pathological symptomatics in Rhys s early texts points to the way in which she saw her writerly project within the modern as one of colonial analysis .47 As has been noted,. shows us, as much as anything else, how. Heidler s snobbish male - dominated way of thinking resonates with. −122−. the. （ 87 ）.

(20) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Sugiura. categorical imperative , which complies with Eurocentric perspectives, such as （. ）. , and. . Holding hands with. Eurocentric thinking through the categorical imperative , Heidler s love game is bound up with a hypocritical, self - deceiving system. In these circumstances, Marya is gradually possessed by. feelings. Marya thinks: ［…］there he. has, like the same chord repeated in a lower key, sitting with his hands clasped in exactly the same posture as hers （ , 76）. In a the existence of Marya is but the source of. world of the Heidlers, : her modes are not in. harmony with Eurocentric modes of the Heidlers. Marya s therefore, induce her melancholia; by degrees, she becomes the in the sun hour after and her thoughts were vague and pale, like. t feelings, : Marya lay （ , 120,. My emphasis）. However, we should realise here that Marya is in quest of happiness can t anymore. I. I can t. I must be comforted. I can t any more. I can t any more.. Can t go on. Can t... （ , 137） . Her melancholic self - criticism is frequently directed towards the liberty of the future. Through Marya s melancholic voices, tries to think through, to borrow again Maslen s paraphrasing of Freudian melancholy, a haunted space, darkened by the ghost or shadow of the object that is no longer accessible .48 Eventually, the narrative of the novel focuses on the. other, unscrupulously excluded and concealed by the European. social system of power; in other words, its narrative struggles to achieve a productive dialogue with. in the male - centred. system of the society. In this melancholic but hopeful process, the deceit of male - oriented system is responsibly and critically. .. 6．Conclusion It can be concluded that the narrative of mourning over Marya as the inextricably associated with the. （ 88 ）. conducts. or. . The work of mourning is of melancholia that, in Freudian. −121−.

(21) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. psychoanalysis, is often considered the product of the failure of the work of mourning. But the process of the work of mourning, the. return. of melancholia, does not always suggest a pessimistic future. In. , the metaphor of the. alludes to le revenant in French, a. word that implies return or coming , a sense of repetition : Marya falls into a melancholic mood over and over again, and the metaphor of the. is. used. However, what should not be overlooked is that, as the narrative of. produces Marya s melancholic mood, the. frequency of. the other victimised by European social power is. effectively doubled. On the whole, the is a certain type of strategy to. narration with melancholic mood produce the spirit of criticism against. European social power, especially androcentrism. This does not show that Marya is just a passive victim; on the contrary, the can be regarded as the. of melancholic. of a vital, critical thought. , one that. implicitly provides an ethico - political gesture toward the future , that calls for a future justice . In. , the depiction of melancholia, which indicates Marya s dissonance, can be considered alongside Rhys s irony, wit and satire in. its capacity to critique the androcentric system. To borrow Bhabha s term again, the. of melancholic narrative in the. other; it. is something that or. exceptionally painful situation of its. the. ; and, in so doing, it. the authority of androcentrism, though it seems to, at first glance, imply an artistic pessimism. , first published in the 1920s, is never out - dated. This reading of can provide us with a means of examining the systems of the contemporary world in the age of globalism. For instance, Carr argues that ［o］ne of the problems in discussing Rhys s work has been that until recently no critical language existed in which to express the ambiguity and fractured. −120−. （ 89 ）.

(22) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Sugiura. condition of identities like hers .49 What is more, Carr continues to explain that Rhys s fiction registers the sense of disorientation and the uncertain identity of those who live the ambivalent, uncentred, dislocated existences which some now argue have become paradigmatic of our postmodernist times .50 Here, Carr suggests that it is worthwhile to read Rhys s novels to examine the contemporary world order of globalism. But, in the present, how can we read. ? In ‘Like the Sound of the. Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man s War , Derrida mourns de Man; he states:. He,. ,. , and yet, through the spectres of memory and. of the text, he lives. us and, as one says in French,. he looks at us, but also he is our concern, we have concerns regarding him more than ever without his being here.51. Derrida cannot forget de Man because of the. of successful. mourning, by which de Man would be coldly assimilated. Derrida experiences an work of mourning for de Man; in other words, through the spectres of memory and of the text ,52 Derrida is always obsessed by the spectre ghost. the. of de Man. Now, through the text of. , we are haunted by the. of Marya: in. effect, we stand at a critical juncture in two ways. On the one hand, we know how to expel the. in order to forget it; on the other hand, we know how to. perpetually negotiate with the. , through continual remembrance. Hopefully,. it is the latter way that we will choose. We should read irresponsibly forgetting the. without. , though we are always, in the process of. reading the text, haunted by melancholia.. Notes 1. Jean Rhys,. （ 90 ）. （Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000）; hereafter abbreviated. −119−. ..

(23) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. Regarding the title of the novel, Carle Angier points out as follows: Jean s first title . For its 1928 publication the title was changed to Postures（in England, not in the USA）. The original title was restored when it was reissued in 1969 . Carole Angier,. :. （Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1990）, p. 177.. 2. Angier, p. 173.. 3. Judith Kegan Gardiner, Rhys Recalls Ford: Quartet and The Good Solder in , Vol. 1（1）Spring（1982）, p. 69.. 4. Ford, Bowen, and Lenglet also published （1940）, and. （1932）or. （1931）, （1933）, which express their own. perspectives concerning the affair between Ford and Rhys. 5. Joseph Wiesenfarth, （Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005）.. 6. Wiesenfarth, p. 89.. 7. Elgin W. Mellown,. Character and Themes in the Novels of Jean Rhys. in. Vol. 13（4）Autumn（1972）, p. 463. 8. Helen Carr,. （Plymouth: Northcote House, 1996）, p. 5.. 9. Carr, p. 5.. 10. Carr, p. 5.. 11. Cathleen Maslen, （New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009）.. 12. Maslen, p. 30.. 13. Maslen, p. 76.. 14. Sigmund Freud,. Mourning and Melancholia , trans. by James Strachey in （Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984）, pp.. 251 - 252. 15. Freud, p. 253.. 16. Freud, p. 253.. 17. Freud, p. 253.. 18. Freud, p. 254.. −118−. （ 91 ）.

(24) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. 19. Freud, p. 254.. 20. Maslen, P. 18.. 21. Jacques Derrida, -. Sugiura. Dialanguages , tras. by Peggy Kamuf, in. , ed. by Elisabeth Weber（Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995） , p. 152.. 22. Nicholas Royle,. 23. Derrida, By Force of Mourning , trans. by Pascale - Anne Brault and Micheal Naas, in. （London: Routledge, 1997）, pp. 151 - 152.. Vol. 22（2）Winter（1996）, p. 172.. 24. Royle, p. 152.. 25. Derrida, Dialanguages , p. 152.. 26. Derrida, By Force of Mourning , p. 172.. 27. Derrida,. , trans. by Peggy Kamuf（London: Routledge, 1994）, p. 97.. 28 Ranjana Khanna, Post - Palliative: Coloniality s Affective Dissonance in , Vol. 2（1） ,（2006） ,（http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/385/135） . 29. Khanna,（http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/385/135）.. 30. Khanna,（http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/385/135）.. 31. Khanna,（http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/385/135）.. 32. Craig J. Saper,. （Minnesota:. University of Minnesota Press, 1997）, p. 61. 33. Freud, p. 257.. 34. Homi Bhabha, Postcolonial Authority and Postmodern Guilt , in. , ed.. by Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler（London: Routledge, 1994）, p. 65. 35. Khanna,（http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/385/135）.. 36. Khanna,（http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/385/135）.. 37. Sylvie Maurel,. 38. Maurel, p. 21.. 39. In this regard, it could be considered that Rhys perceives an atmosphere of the party. （London : Macmillan Press, 1998）, p. 20.. in a different way to Virginia Woolf. For example, Michal Levenson focuses on one of the Woolf diaries, in which Woolf describes her social excitement: Suppose one s. （ 92 ）. −117−.

(25) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. normal pulse to be 70: in five minutes it was 120: & the blood, not the sticky whitish fluid of daytime, but brilliant & prickling like champagne . Virginia Woolf,. Ⅱ. , ed. by Anne Olivier Bell （Harmondsworth:. Penguin, 1978）, p. 223. and Levenson points out that Woolf speaks eloquently to the positive conditions of a Modernism of small social cells, nourished on the pleasures and powers of comradeship . Michal Levenson,. Introduction. in. , ed. by Michal Levenson（Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998） , p. 6. In. , Rhys s representation of the party is different from. Woolf s. Rhys sees another characteristic of the party at that time, a characteristic that, even Woolf, who critiqued the discriminatory systems of society, could not see. 40. Khanna,（http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/385/135）.. 41. Immanuel Kant,. , trans. by Lewis White Beck（New York:. Macmillian Press, 1993）, p. 90; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, （Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1999）, p. 123. 42. Spivak, p. 123.. 43. Kant, p. 86; Spivak, p. 123.. 44. Spivak, p. 123. Spivak refers to Jan - Luc Nancy s central argument in .. 45. Spivak, pp. 123 - 124.. 46. Spivak, pp. 123 - 124.. 47. Carol Dell Amico, （London: Routledge, 2005）, p. 1.. 48. Maslen, p. 18.. 49. Carr, p. 22.. 50. Carr, p. 23.. 51. Derrida, Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man s War , trans. by Peggy Kamuf in. , ed. by Cecile Lindsay, Jonathan. Culler, Eduardo Cadava, and Peggy Kamuf（New York: Columbia University Press,. −116−. （ 93 ）.

(26) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Sugiura. 1986）, p. 161. 52. Derrida, Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man s War , p. 161.. References Primary Sources Rhys, Jean,. （London: Andre Deutsche, 1979）. Rhys, Jean,. （Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985）. Rhys, Jean,. （Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000）. Secondary Sources Abel, Elizabeth, Woman and Schizophrenia: The Fiction of Jean Rhys in , Vol. 20（2）Spring（1973）, 155 - 177 Angier, Carole,. （Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985）. Bhabha, Homi, Postcolonial Authority and Postmodern Guilt , in. , ed. by. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler（London: Routledge, 1994）, 56 - 58 Carr, Helen,. （Plymouth: Northcote House, 1996）. Delany, Paul, Jean Rhys and Ford Madox Ford: What Really Happened? in. , Vol.. 16（4）Fall（1983）, 15 - 24 Dell Amico, Carol, （London: Routledge, 2005） Derrida, Jacques, Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man s War , trans. by Peggy Kamuf in. , ed. by Cecile Lindsay, Jonathan. Culler, Eduardo Cadava, and Peggy Kamuf（New York: Columbia University Press, 1986）, 156 - 263 Derrida, Jacques,. , trans. by Peggy Kamuf（London: Routledge, 1994）. Derrida, Jacques, Dialanguages , trans. by Peggy Kamuf, in. , 1974 94,. ed. by Elisabeth Weber（Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995）, 132 - 155 Derrida, Jacques, By Force of Mourning , trans. by Pascale - Anne Brault and Micheal. （ 94 ）. −115−.

(27) 文学・芸術・文化／第 22 巻第 1 号／ 2010．9. Naas in. , Vol. 22（2）Winter（1996）, 171 - 192 . Durrant, Sam, （Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004） Emery, Mary Lou, （Texas: University of Texas Press, 1990） Ford, Ford Madox, Freud, Sigmund,. （Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999） Mourning and Melancholia , trans. by James Strachey in （Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984）, 248. - 268 Freud, Sigmund, The Ego and the Id , trans. by James Strachey in （. ）. （London: Vintage Books, 2001）, 3 - 66 Gardiner, Judith Kegan, Rhys Recalls Ford: Quartet and The Good Solder in , Vol. 1（1）Spring（1982）, 67 - 81 Gregg, Veronica Marie, （Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995） Harrison, Nancy R.,. （Chapel Hill & London:. University of North Carolina Press, 1988） Howells, Caral Ann, James, Louis,. （London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991）（London: Longman, 1978）. Kant, Immanuel,. , trans. by Lewis White Beck（New York:. Macmillian Press, 1993） Khanna, Ranjana, Post - Palliative: Coloniality s Affective Dissonance in. ,. Vol. 2（1）（2006）（http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/385/135） Kineke, Shelia,. Like a Hook Fits an Eye : Jean Rhys, Ford Madox Ford, and the Imperial. Operations of Modernist Mentoring in. , Vol. 16. （2）（Autumn, 1997）, 281 - 301 Levenson, Michal, Introduction in. , ed. by. Michal Levenson（Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1998）, 1 - 8. −114−. （ 95 ）.

(28) The Ghost and Affective Dissonance: Mourning and Melancholia in Jean Rhys s. Sugiura. Maslen, Cathleen, （New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009） Maurel, Sylvie,. （London : Macmillan Press, 1998）. Mellown, Elgin W., Character and Themes in the Novels of Jean Rhys in , Vol. 13（4）Autumn（1972）, 458 - 475 Royle, Nicholas,. （London: Routledge, 1997）. Saper, Craig J.. （Minnesota:. University of Minnesota Press, 1997） Savory, Elaine,. （Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998）. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, （Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999） Wiesenfarth, Joseph, （Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005）. Ⅱ. Woolf, Virginia, （Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978）. （ 96 ）. −113−. - , ed. by Anne Olivier Bell.

(29)