Encountering Others’ Empathy Toward Oneself in Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat

IF 0.3 3区 文学 0 LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM
Saumya Lal
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This article examines how Milla, the Afrikaner protagonist of Marlene van Niekerk’s post-apartheid novel Agaat, engages with others’ empathy toward herself. Theorizing empathy as a multivalent engagement with others’ experiences, I argue that Milla attempts to variously invite, avoid, and manipulate others’ empathy as she negotiates the anxiety of being misunderstood, the sense of vulnerability in being understood, and the dependence of her self-image on others’ opinions. Illustrating the fraught experience of encountering empathy toward oneself—a neglected topic in studies of empathy—the novel shows that empathy is neither always welcomed nor received passively by potential empathizees. Further, I suggest, the contrast between Milla’s approaches to empathy as empathizer and empathizee ironizes her struggles by indicating her proclivity for controlling empathic interactions. Demonstrating how power relations inform empathy, Agaat complicates the popular notion of empathy as a straightforward gateway to reconciliation by highlighting its characters’ ambivalences about receiving empathy.
在玛琳·范·尼克尔克的《阿加特》中遇到他人对自己的同理心
这篇文章探讨了玛琳·范·尼克尔的后种族隔离小说《阿加特》中的南非白人主人公米拉是如何与他人对自己产生共鸣的。将同理心理论化为与他人经历的多价互动,我认为Milla在处理被误解的焦虑、被理解的脆弱感以及她的自我形象对他人意见的依赖时,试图以各种方式邀请、避免和操纵他人的同理心。这部小说讲述了遇到对自己的同理心的令人担忧的经历——这是同理心研究中被忽视的话题——它表明,潜在的同理心者既不总是欢迎同理心,也不总是被动地接受同理心。此外,我认为,米拉作为移情者和移情者的移情方法之间的对比,通过表明她控制移情互动的倾向,讽刺了她的挣扎。《阿加特》展示了权力关系如何影响同理心,通过强调剧中人物对接受同理心的矛盾心理,将同理心作为和解的直接途径的流行概念复杂化。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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CiteScore
0.40
自引率
0.00%
发文量
37
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