Mary O’Donnell’s novel The Elysium Testament (1999) narrates the story of Nina, an accomplished grotto restorer, but a neglectful wife and mother according to the Irish patriarchal symbolic order –the “register of regulatory ideality” (Butler, Bodies that Matter 18). Estranged from her husband, Neil, she sends him a series of letters, her “testament,” where some of the most significant aspects of her life are exposed. Readers discover that Nina’s and Neil’s marriage begins to crumble after the birth of their second child, Roland, to whom Nina attributes a frightening dual nature, which she tries to control through physical and psychological punishment. When Roland accidentally perishes in the grotto Nina has been restoring, the ensuing guilt she experiences sends her into a profound state of depression. A psychiatrist helps her begin a cathartic, healing and redeeming process by which she may experience an inner revolution and a symbolic rebirthing. This study explores how Nina’s vulnerability as a mother and wife in distress is projected onto her son, Roland, whose abnormal behavior forms an element of unaddressed psychic disturbance in her own life. This work also examines the psychoanalytic dimensions of the strategies she implements to resist the hegemonic discourse and social practices in favor of domesticity, marriage and motherhood in Ireland. Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic approach towards the maternal and Judith Butler’s, Zeynep Gambetti’s and Leticia Sabsay’s views on vulnerability and resistance are employed to analyze the topic. Maria Elena Jaime de Pablos, "Motherhood, Vulnerability and Resistance: page 2 of 8 in The Elysium Testament by Mary O’Donnell” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 20.1 (2019): Special Issue Gendered Bodies in Transit: Between Vulnerability and Resistance. Ed. Manuela Coppola and Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz Maria Elena JAIME DE PABLOS Motherhood, Vulnerability and Resistance in The Elysium Testament by Mary O’Donnell The poet, novelist, short story author Mary O’Donnell, “one of Ireland’s most interesting and gifted writers” according to Éilís Ní Dhuibhne (vii), published her “complex, accomplished and critically acclaimed” (Walshe 79) novel, The Elysium Testament, in 1999. This novel is a piece of narrative in which gothic devices and mystic qualities are combined to produce “a savage exploration of the primal forces of transgression, fear and death” (Kremin, qtd. in Walshe 79). Her past haunts her to the point of torture and she prefers death to living such a miserable life: “As I no longer have the capacity to halt this flow of memory, I’ve decided to die” (O’Donnell 25). However, before she puts an end to her life, she needs her husband and daughter to understand her reasons for acting as she did. For Eibhear Walshe, the novel, narrated in first-person, is “an extended suicide note” (80), and he adds: “Her testament is an attempt to understand the tragic accident that led to the death of her son. This is her lament, her song of Roland, but it is also her fictive attempt to come to terms with her own abuse of her son and her fear of his strange nature” (80). Kristeva says that it is obvious that childbirth involves mental and physical suffering, that motherhood implies self-denial in making oneself anonymous in order to transmit social norms. She is thus able to turn nature into culture, by establishing a relationship between the semiotic (nature) and the symbolic (culture). But motherhood compensates women for this sort of masochism. By becoming mothers, women experience love and achieve completeness: “the arrival of the child gives her a chance, albeit not a certainty, of access to the other”, to the ethical encounter with the other (Kristeva, “Stabat,” 115). Thus mother and child are related to each other by the bond of love. A mother not only gives life but also love. Kristeva tends to idealize the nurturing and caring qualities of the pre-oedipal state and emphasize the significance of the early mother-infant bond for the healthy development of the child’s subjectivity (Mercer 246): thinking, creativity, capacity for symbolization, ability to relate to others, etc. The infant body becomes a mimetic pattern of the maternal body—matrix—and opens onto the symbolic by “assimilation, repetition, and reproduction of words” (Reineke 53-54). Mary O’Donnell, however, describes a maternal experience which Kristeva does not account for. Nina does not want to have an unplanned and unwanted second child and intends to have an abortion. However, she finally decides to go forward with her pregnancy for Neil’s sake. She does not idealize motherhood. Quite the opposite is true: she considers giving birth an act of violence and pain (O’Donnell 32), which may lead to death—Nina nearly dies at labor (31)—and motherhood an alienating phenomenon. She describes the mother’s life as “sick and weak and at the mercy of other people” (58), and her children as a “cage” (31). This would be in tune with Luce Irigaray’s assertion that motherhood implies a transformation “process of moving from independence to interdependence, unity to fluidity” (qtd. in Baraitser 52) or with Kristeva’s assertion that “the transition to motherhood entails a certain horror, disintegration, the birth of a state of being excessive to unity” (qtd. in Baraitser 53). The maternal is thus understood as metaphor for the split subject itself (subject ant the other). The ethical encounter with the other that motherhood represents, according to Kristeva, does not take place between Nina and Roland as she considers him “an alien in earnest” and perceives “a gap between [...her] life and his” (O’Donnell 58). That Nina undergoes an experience of confrontation with his—for her, intolerable—son is explicitly stated in the passage in which she confesses that: “Everything in [...her] resisted Roland” (54). Roland represents an intrusion of the other into an ideal liberal and secular family community constituted by Neil, Nina and their first sibling, Elinore. They constitute a homogeneous family group who seem to relate to each other in a fairly harmonious way. Nina tries, using Zeynep Gambetti’s words, to exclude, subjugate and humiliate (30) Roland for being dissimilar and therefore alien, abject, a destabilizing element. His nature—strange, uncanny, sometimes mystic, sometimes evil—is Nina’s source of frustration, anxiety, distress and fear. To explain Roland’s behavior, from a medical point of view, readers of the novel are told that he suffers from a neurological problem which makes him see a doppelgänger, a presence identical in appearance but opposite in character: Roland stands for good, his doppelgänger stands for evil. In this respect, an early note in the novel introduces Roland’s disorder: “NOTE. The experience of seeing a doppelgänger is termed heautoscopy and seems to be closely linked with epilepsy of the temporal lobe kind” (O’Donnell 6). Roland is visited by his doppelgänger at night. He fears this “other Roland,” his diabolical other self, which in perpetual conflict with him, a five-year-old boy who, in contrast to such presence, displays Maria Elena Jaime de Pablos, "Motherhood, Vulnerability and Resistance: page 3 of 8 in The Elysium Testament by Mary O’Donnell” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 20.1 (2019): Special Issue Gendered Bodies in Transit: Between Vulnerability and Resistance. Ed. Manuela Coppola and Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz saintly attributes—religious devotion, obedience, tolerance to suffering and superpowers. But then, he can, for instance, levitate. In the following quotation, Nina responds with terror when she observes Roland levitate in the fashion of a medieval mystic in union with God. His “radiant joy” seems to emphasize the fact that he is experiencing an ecstatic vision which fills him with pure bliss: The room was filled with ivory light and the child was suspended above the two miniature altars, arms out stretched, his face radiant with joy and perspiration. At the sight of him, a sickness rose up in my gorge. [...] Before I could call his name again, I gagged, my eyes shut tight with the effort of restraint, yet unable to control my stomach as it heaved an acidic mess out into this room. The air curdled. When I opened my eyes, I was on my knees, gasping. Roland stood beside me. ‘Mama!’ he whispered, his eyes gentle with concern. One part of me wanted to hang onto him, to lean against him, and for a moment I imagined his small frame could carry me. But again, my need for him was transformed into something else. My face was hot, yet the perspiration which broke on my brow and upper lip seemed chilly. The heat of anger rose through my body, the surge of blood to my head. As I knelt, level with him, I could see my reflection in the mirror and recognized that rage. ‘What were you at?’ I hissed, catching him by both arms and holding tight. ‘Mama!’ ‘What were you doing? What were you doing?’ Then I began to shake him. I shook him and shook him, and he did not cry out. He tried to control the movement of his head as I kept shaking and pinching, in a blind attempt to kill the thing in him that provoked me at every turn. Finally, he went limp in my arms. ‘Jesus,’ I whispered, holding him to me. ‘Oh Jesus.’ (O’Donnell 158) The last sentence in the above quotation may lead the reader to think that Nina is falling prey to an unconscious drive that is beyond her control, which leads her to horrible violent actions, although in a nonintentional, and pre-reflexive way. As Walshe indicates: “O’Donnell introduces the reader to a nightmare of monstrous gothic motherhood underpinned by fear of [...] what increasingly appears to be evidence of the saintly paranormal” (91-92). She, Walshe adds, embodies “society’s profound fear of the irrational and the mystical” (80), taboo topics that she prefers not to discuss. No wonder, then, that Nina writes: “I told nobody. Neither you, nor Ciaran, nor

中文翻译：

---

Mary O'Donnell在《极乐世界》中的母性，脆弱性和抵抗力

玛丽·奥唐纳（Mary O'Donnell）的小说《极乐世界》（Elysium Testament）（1999）讲述了妮娜（Nina）的故事，妮娜是个成就十足的石窟修复者，但根据爱尔兰重男轻女的象征秩序-“监管理想的登记册”，却是个被忽略的妻子和母亲（巴特勒，第18项机构） ）。她与丈夫尼尔（Neil）疏远，给他寄了一系列信件，即她的“遗嘱”，在其中暴露了她一生中一些最重要的方面。读者发现，妮娜（Nina）和尼尔（Neil）的婚姻在他们的第二个孩子罗兰（Roland）出生后开始崩溃，妮娜（Nina）赋予了她可怕的双重性，她试图通过身体和心理上的惩罚来控制这种双重性。当罗兰（Roland）意外地在石窟中消亡时，尼娜（Nina）已经恢复了生命，随之而来的内使她陷入了一种深深的沮丧状态。精神科医生帮助她开始通便，治愈和救赎的过程中，她可能会经历内在的革命和象征性的重生。这项研究探索了妮娜（Nina）作为患难母亲和妻子的脆弱性如何投射到她的儿子罗兰（Roland）身上，儿子罗兰的异常行为构成了她自己生活中无法解决的心理障碍的要素。这项工作还考察了她为抵制霸权主义话语和社会实践以支持爱尔兰的家庭，婚姻和母性所采取的策略的心理分析维度。朱莉娅·克里斯蒂娃（Julia Kristeva）对孕产妇的心理分析方法以及朱迪思·巴特勒（Judith Butler），泽因普·甘贝蒂（Zeynep Gambetti）和莱蒂西亚·萨布赛（Leticia Sabsay）关于脆弱性和抵抗力的观点被用来分析这个话题。Maria Elena Jaime de Pablos，“母亲，脆弱性和抵抗力：Mary O'Donnell撰写的《极乐世界》中的第2页，共8页” CLCWeb：比较文学与文化20.1（2019）：特刊性别过境机构：在脆弱性与抵抗之间。埃德 Manuela Coppola和Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz Maria Elena JAIME DE PABLOS玛丽·奥唐纳（Mary O'Donnell）在《极乐世界》中的母亲，脆弱性和抵抗力诗人，小说家，短篇小说作家玛丽·奥唐纳（Mary O'Donnell）是“爱尔兰最有趣和有才华的作家之一”于ÉilísNíDhuibhne（vii）于1999年出版了她的“复杂，成就卓著且广受好评”的小说《极乐世界》，该小说是一部叙事作品，结合了哥特式装置和神秘特质来产生“ “对犯罪，恐惧和死亡的原始力量进行了野蛮的探索”（Kremin，qtd。in Walshe 79）。她的过去一直困扰着她，直到遭受酷刑，她更喜欢死，而不是过着如此悲惨的生活：“由于我不再有能力停止这种记忆流动，所以我决定死了”（奥唐奈25）。但是，在结束生命之前，她需要丈夫和女儿了解自己行事的理由。对于Eibhear Walshe而言，这本小说以第一人称视角叙述，是“一个扩展的自杀记录”（80岁），他补充说：“她的遗嘱是一种尝试，以了解导致她儿子死亡的悲剧性事故。这是她的哀叹，是罗兰（Roland）的歌，但也是她对自己虐待儿子和害怕儿子陌生性的调解尝试（80）。克里斯蒂娃（Kristeva）说，很明显，分娩会带来精神和身体上的痛苦，母亲的身份意味着在克制自己的匿名性以传递社会规范时自我克制。她因此能够将自然变成文化，通过建立符号学（自然）和符号学（文化）之间的关系。但是孕产可以弥补女性的这种受虐感。通过成为母亲，妇女可以体验爱情并获得完整：“孩子的到来使她有机会（尽管不是确定的）与他人接触”，并与他人进行了道德交往（Kristeva，“ Stabat”，115） 。因此，母子之间通过爱的关系彼此联系。母亲不仅赋予生命，而且赋予爱。克里斯蒂娃（Kristeva）倾向于理想化食欲前状态的养育和关怀品质，并强调早期母婴结合对于孩子的主观性健康发展的重要性（Mercer 246）：思维，创造力，象征能力，联系能力给别人等等 婴儿的身体成为母体（矩阵）的模仿模式，并通过“同化，重复和再现词语”进入象征（Reineke 53-54）。然而，玛丽·奥唐纳（Mary O'Donnell）描述了克里斯蒂娃（Kristeva）无法解释的母性经历。妮娜不想生一个计划外的多余的第二个孩子，打算堕胎。但是，为了尼尔，她最终决定继续怀孕。她没有理想化母亲身份。事实恰恰相反：她认为分娩时会发生暴力和痛苦（O'Donnell 32），这可能导致死亡-妮娜几乎要死于劳动（31）-而孕产是一种疏远的现象。她将母亲的生活描述为“病弱，受人怜悯”（58），将孩子的生活描述为“笼子”（31）。这与卢斯·伊里加里（Ruce Irigaray）的论断相称，即母性意味着“从独立到相互依存，团结到流动的过程”（Baraitser 52，同上）的转变，或者与克里斯蒂娃（Kristeva）的论断相称，“向母性的转变必然带来某种恐怖，瓦解。 ，是从过度到团结的状态的诞生”（q.tdd。in Baraitser 53）。产妇因此被理解为被分裂的主体本身（另一个主体）的隐喻。克里斯蒂娃（Kristeva）认为，母亲所代表的与另一人的道德遭遇并没有发生在妮娜和罗兰之间，因为她认为尼娜是“认真的外星人”，并且认为“人生与他之间存在鸿沟”（O '唐奈58）。尼娜经历了与他的对抗-对她来说，儿子无法忍受-她在自白中明确声明：“ [...]中的一切都抵制罗兰德”（54）。罗兰（Roland）代表另一方入侵由尼尔（Neil），妮娜（Nina）和他们的第一个兄弟姐妹（Elinore）组成的理想的自由和世俗家庭社区。他们组成了一个同质的家庭群体，他们似乎以一种相当和谐的方式相互联系。妮娜（Nina）尝试使用Zeynep Gambetti的话，排除，征服和羞辱（30）罗兰（Roland），因为他们与众不同，因此成为陌生，令人沮丧的不稳定因素。Nina的挫折，焦虑，困扰和恐惧来自他的天性-奇怪，不可思议，时而神秘，时而邪恶。为了从医学的角度解释罗兰的行为，该小说的读者被告知他患有神经系统疾病，这使他看到了doppelgänger，外表相同但性格相反的存在：罗兰（Roland）代表善，他的多贝格尔（Doppelgänger）代表邪恶。在这方面，小说的早期笔记介绍了罗兰氏病：“注意。看到多普勒镜的经验被称为高视力镜检查，似乎与颞叶癫痫病密切相关”（O'Donnell 6）。晚上，他的doppelgänger会拜访Roland。他担心这个“另一个罗兰人”（他的另一个恶魔般的自我）会与他发生永久性冲突，他是一个五岁的男孩，与这样的存在相反，他展示了玛丽亚·埃莱娜·贾梅·德帕布洛斯（Maria Elena Jaime de Pablos），“母性，脆弱性和抵抗力： Mary O'Donnell撰写的《极乐世界》中的8之3” CLCWeb：比较文学与文化20.1（2019）：特刊性别过境机构：在脆弱性与抵抗之间。曼努埃拉·科波拉（Manuela Coppola）和玛丽亚·伊莎贝尔·罗梅罗·鲁伊斯（Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz）的圣人属性是：宗教奉献，服从，对苦难的宽容和超能力。但是，例如，他可以悬浮。在下面的引文中，妮娜（Nina）看到罗兰（Roland）以中世纪神秘主义者的身份与上帝联合而漂浮，因此感到恐惧。他的“欢乐洋溢”似乎强调了一个事实，即他正经历着欣喜若狂的景象，使他充满了纯洁的幸福：房间里充满了象牙般的光线，孩子悬浮在两个微型祭坛上方，双臂伸开，脸上洋溢着光彩。喜悦和汗水。看到他，我的峡谷里生出了一种病。[...]在我再次叫出他的名字之前，我作呕，在克制的努力下，我的双眼紧闭，但由于胃里充满了酸性物质，无法控制自己的胃。空气凝结了。当我睁开眼睛时，我跪在地上，喘着粗气。罗兰站在我旁边。'妈妈！' 他小声说，眼睛温柔地关心着。我的一部分想挂在他身上，靠在他身上，片刻间我以为他的小身架可以扛住我。但是再次，我对他的需求变成了其他东西。我的脸很热，但额头和上唇的汗水似乎很冷。愤怒的热量从我体内升起，鲜血涌向我的头。当我跪下来与他平齐时，我可以看到镜子里的倒影，并意识到了这种愤怒。“你在干什么？” 我嘶哑，双手抓住他，紧紧抓住。'妈妈！' '你在做什么？你在做什么？' 然后我开始动摇他。我摇了摇他，他没有哭出来。当我不断晃动和捏捏时，他试图控制头部的运动，盲目地企图杀死他那使我动不动的东西。终于，他瘫软在我怀里。“耶稣。”我小声说，抱着他。“哦，耶稣。” （O'Donnell 158）以上引文中的最后一句话可能会使读者认为Nina成为无法控制的无意识驱动力的猎物，这会导致她采取可怕的暴力行动，尽管这是无意的，预谋的。自反的方式。就像沃尔什指出的那样：“奥多内尔（O'Donnell）向读者介绍了一场可怕的哥特式母性噩梦，这种恐惧是由于担心越来越多的证据表明这是圣超自然现象的证据。”（91-92）沃尔什补充说，她体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜这样写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，他went在我怀里。“耶稣。”我小声说，抱着他。“哦，耶稣。” （O'Donnell 158）以上引文中的最后一句话可能会使读者认为Nina成为无法控制的无意识驱动力的猎物，这会导致她采取可怕的暴力行动，尽管这是无意的，预谋的。自反的方式。就像沃尔什指出的那样：“奥多内尔（O'Donnell）向读者介绍了一场可怕的哥特式母性噩梦，这种恐惧是由于担心越来越多的证据表明这是圣超自然现象的证据。”（91-92）沃尔什补充说，她体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜这样写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，他went在我怀里。“耶稣。”我小声说，抱着他。“哦，耶稣。” （O'Donnell 158）以上引文中的最后一句话可能会使读者认为Nina成为无法控制的无意识驱动力的猎物，这会导致她采取可怕的暴力行动，尽管这是无意的，预谋的。自反的方式。就像沃尔什指出的那样：“奥多内尔（O'Donnell）向读者介绍了一场可怕的哥特式母性噩梦，这种恐惧是由于担心越来越多的证据表明这是圣超自然现象的证据。”（91-92）沃尔什补充说，她体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜这样写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，（（O'Donnell 158）以上引用的最后一句话可能使读者认为Nina成为无法控制的无意识驱动力的猎物，这导致她采取了可怕的暴力行动，尽管这是无意的，预谋的自反的方式。就像沃尔什指出的那样：“奥多内尔（O'Donnell）向读者介绍了一场可怕的哥特式母性噩梦，这种恐惧是由于担心越来越多的证据表明这是圣超自然现象的证据。”（91-92）沃尔什补充说，她体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜这样写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，（（O'Donnell 158）以上引用的最后一句话可能使读者认为Nina成为无法控制的无意识驱动力的猎物，这导致她采取了可怕的暴力行动，尽管这是无意的，预谋的自反的方式。就像沃尔什指出的那样：“奥多内尔（O'Donnell）向读者介绍了一场可怕的哥特式母性噩梦，这种恐惧是由于担心越来越多的证据表明这是圣超自然现象的证据。”（91-92）沃尔什补充说，她体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜这样写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，尽管采取了非故意和自反的方式，但仍导致她采取了可怕的暴力行动。就像沃尔什指出的那样：“奥多内尔（O'Donnell）向读者介绍了一场可怕的哥特式母性噩梦，这种恐惧是由于担心越来越多的证据表明这是圣超自然现象的证据。”（91-92）沃尔什补充说，她体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜这样写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，尽管以非故意和自反的方式，这导致她采取了可怕的暴力行动。就像沃尔什指出的那样：“奥多内尔（O'Donnell）向读者介绍了一场可怕的哥特式母性噩梦，这种恐惧是由于担心越来越多的证据表明这是圣超自然现象的证据。”（91-92）沃尔什补充说，她体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜这样写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，体现了“社会对非理性和神秘主义的深刻恐惧”（80），她不愿讨论这些禁忌话题。难怪尼娜这样写道：“我没有告诉任何人。你，Ciaran，