在《伊莉莎白•卡斯特洛》和《緩慢的人》兩本小說裡，作者柯慈以小說及後設小說的形式呈現了多重的擬聲。一方面，柯慈將他之前的演講素材《The Lives of Animals》帶入論述性極高的小說《伊莉莎白•卡斯特洛》之中。另一方面，柯慈又讓《伊莉莎白•卡斯特洛》的主角跨文本的出現在《緩慢的人》裡。藉由這樣揉雜文類及文本的寫法，柯慈不斷提醒讀者去設想「界線」的問題：不論是傳統上小說之間的界線，抑或是人與人之間個體的界線。而嘗試突破這些界線的意圖，更成為這兩本小說中最引人注目的焦點。本文試圖去論述，柯慈如何藉由這樣的嘗試，讓原本被界線限制住的聲音有自己發聲的機會和舞台，也檢視這些聲音彼此摩擦之後所產生的爭論。本文更試圖去問，在這樣的爭論之中，角色與角色之間如何「溝通」。再者，若是溝通往往得透過語言，而說話者卻常各說各話，那溝通的價值又在何處？也許正是透過不斷強調這些不同的聲音，以及與其爭論的「反聲」，柯慈得以在小說的範疇中描繪出既有的界線，以及跨界的可能。

In Elizabeth Costello (2003) and Slow Man (2005), J. M. Coetzee stages a doubling of voices in a number of ways on both fictional and meta-fictional levels. It occurs between one novel and the other, co-opting “lectures” from yet a third work of his (The Lives of Animals, 1999) into the sequence to further complicate this practice of doubling. It also happens between characters that cross over from one work into another, between Elizabeth Costello who visits herself on Paul, in Slow Man, as the latter’s “author” and saving angel, and Paul, the slow man himself who tries to wean himself from such abstruse claims. Such a joint motif of crossing-over, resistance, and further attempts at claiming control makes a strong case against the integrity of generic and identity boundaries – boundaries that traditional novels mostly adhere to in their stories. Together, in the sequence, however, these acts of transgression tend to double back upon one another, so much so that doubling practically becomes the main plot. This thesis examines how such a motif of doubling enhances the volume of voices that are too often muffled behind the loud insistence on limits and identity. It looks into the “debates” between the generic forms in which the novels are written, namely narratives, essays, lectures and letters. Taking these debates into account, this thesis asks the fundamental question of how the characters “communicate,” and what the value of “communication” is when it produces only the effect of “the hazard of language.” This may well be exactly the ultimate “value” of the motif of doubling in this sequence, namely that by rubbing one voice against another, these novels succeed in giving shape and body to the “countervoices” that lie checked under the human ethical bond of language. It takes a he and a she, a man who is looking for care and a writer who thinks she has the right cure to offer in writing, to construe the real conflicts between one man’s cure and a woman’s offer of care. Between the search for cure and the offer of care, there lies the true gap of beings that cannot be bridged. They can be crossed and crossed over at best, and it is the purpose of this thesis to count, to illustrate and to fathom some of these gaps of beings, and, as Coetzee tries to do, albeit in his typical self-reflexive mode of writing, to imagine the imaginary with which a cross-over is possible by way of writing.

論文審定書 i
Acknowledgments ii
Abstract iii
中文摘要 v
Introduction: Imagining the Imaginary 1
Chapter I: Lost & Found of the Voice: Re-disposing “I” 25
Chapter II: Write & Be Silent? – The Search for a Common Ground 42
Chapter III: “He and His Woman”:
One More Lesson with Elizabeth Costello 62
Conclusion: “Imagining the Unimaginable” 81
Works Cited 94

Works Cited
Ashcroft, Bill. “Irony, Allegory, and Empire: Waiting for the Barbarians and In the Heart of the Country.” Kossew 100-16.
Attridge, Derek. J. M. Coetzee & the Ethics of Reading: Literature in the Event. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004.
Attwell. David. “African, Asia, and the Pacific.” Rev. of The Theory of African Literature: Implications for Practical Criticism, by Chidi Amuta, Writers from South Africa: Culture, Politics and Literary Theory and Activity in South Africa Today, ed. Reginald Gibbons, and Countries of the Mind: The Fiction of J. M. Coetzee, by Dick Penner. Modern Fiction Studies 36.4 (1990): 650-53.
---. J. M. Coetzee: South Africa & the Politics of Writing. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.
---. “The Problem of History in the Fiction of J. M. Coetzee.” Trump 94-133.
---. “Race in Disgrace.” Interventions. 4.3 (2002): 331-41.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. “Discourse in the Novel.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. 32-44.
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. 1980. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981.
---. “The Death of the Author.” Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1987. 142-48.
---. “From Work to Text.” Image-Music-Text. 1977. Heath 155-64.
---. “To Write: An Intransitive Verb?” The Structuralist Controversy: The Language of Criticism and the Sciences of Man. Ed. Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato. Baltimore: The John Hopkins UP, 1972. 134-56.
Benveniste, Émile. “Relationships of Person.” Problems in General Linguistics. Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek. Coral Gables: U of Miami P, 1971. 195-204.
Clarkson, Carrol. J. M. Coetzee: Countervoices. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Coetzee, J. M. Diary of a Bad Year. 2007. London: Vintage, 2008.
---. Disgrace. 1999. London: Vintage, 2009.
---. Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews. Ed. David Attwell. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.
---. Elizabeth Costello. 2003. New York: Penguin, 2004.
---. Interview with David Attwell. An exclusive Interview with J. M. Coetzee. Dagens Nyheter. 8 Dec 2003. <http://www.dn.se/>
---. Life & Times of Michael K. 1983. London: Penguin, 1985.
---. Slow Man. 2005. London: Vintage, 2006.
---. “Thematizing.” The Return of Thematic Criticism. Ed. Werner Sollors. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993. 289.
---. The Lives of Animals. Ed. Amy Gutmann. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1999.
---. “The Novel Today.” Upstream 6.1 (1988): 2–5.
---. Waiting for the Barbarians. 1980. London: Vintage, 2004.
Cooper, Brenda. “New Criteria for an ‘Abnormal Mutation’? An Evaluation of Gordimer’s A Sport of Nature.” Trump 68-93.
Gallagher, Susan VanZanten. A Story of South Africa: J. M. Coetzee’s Fiction in Context. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991.
Gordimer, Nadine. “The Essential Gesture.” The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places. Ed. Stephen Clingman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. 285-300.
---. “The Idea of Gardening.” Rev. of Life & Times of Michael K, by J. M. Coetzee. Kossew 139-44.
Head, Dominic. “Coetzee and the Animals: the Quest for Postcolonial Grace.” Empire and the Gothics: the Politics of Genres. Ed. by Andrew Smith and William Hughes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 229-44.
Iddiols, Katy. “Disputing Inauthentic Readings: Coetzee’s Strategies.” J. M. Coetzee in Context and Theory. Ed. Elleke Boehmer, Katy Iddiols, and Robert Eagleton. New York: Continuum, 2009. 185-97.
Jakobson, Roman. “Shifters and Verbal Categories.” On Language. Ed. Linda R. Waugh and Monique Monville-Burston. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990. 386-92.
Kossew, Sue, ed. Critical Essays on J.M. Coetzee. New York: G.K. Hall, 1998.
---. Introduction. Kossew 1-17.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo. 1982. Trans. Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1985.
Marais, Michael. “Coming into Being: J. M. Coetzee’s Slow Man and the Aesthetic of Hospitality.” Contemporary Literature 50.2 (2009): 273-98.
O’Connor, Rory and Richard Bell. “No Word for Tsunami: Imagining the Unimaginable.” 28 Mar. 2011. Huffpost World: The Internet Newspaper. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/world/>
Onishi, Norimitsu and James Glanz. “Japanese Rules for Nuclear Plants Relied on Old Science.” 26 Mar. 2011. The New York Times. <http://www.nytimes.com/>
Penner, Dick. Countries of the Mind: The Fiction of J. M. Coetzee. New York: Greenwood P, 1989.
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. Dir. Masaki Tachibana. Bones and Kinema Citrus, 2009.
Trump, Martin, ed. Rendering Things Visible: Essays on South African Literary Culture. Athens: Ohio UP, 1991.
Walton, Heather. “Staging John Coetzee/Elizabeth Costello.” Literature & Theology. 22.3 (2008): 280-94.
Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London: Methuen, 1984.
Wicomb, Zo&euml;. “Slow Man and the Real: a Lesson in Reading and Writing.” Journal of Literary Studies. 25.4 (2009): 7-24.