The Motifs of the Whore and the Doll in Walter Benjamin : A Freudian Understanding of Commodity Fetishism

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  • ベンヤミンにおける〈娼婦〉と〈人形〉のモティーフ : 商品フェティシズム論のフロイト的読解
  • ベンヤミン ニ オケル ショウフ ト ニンギョウ ノ モティーフ ショウヒン フェティシズムロン ノ フロイトテキ ドッカイ

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Abstract

The flâneur in Benjamin has often been thought of as an "observer." Yet there is another aspect of the flâneur in Benjamin, which is intoxicated, without mastery of the subject and without a clear boundary between the self and the other. In order to focus on this experience of the intoxication of the flâneur, this article deals with one of the figures which cause said intoxication, namely the whore. According to Benjamin, the figure of the whore is a peculiar allegory of modernity, "the life which signifies death," which embodies the character of commodity in the extreme. However, exactly what Benjamin means when referring to "death" is not clear. A suitable clue to trace the hidden meaning of "death" in Benjamin's thought is the figure of the doll, which has a close connection with the whore. Considering the figure of the doll, Benjamin addresses a fetishism that includes a factor of sadism, a fetishism that succumbs to the sex-appeal of the inorganic. This idea corresponds closely with the notion of a compulsive recurrence of the death drive in Freud's "The Uncanny." In conclusion, it is suggested that the secret of the figure of the whore resides in the dangerous quality of revealing the deadly purpose of eros, and "the life which signifies death" is nothing hut the allegorical figure which exposes the death drive. Seduced by the ambiguous attraction of the whore, the flâneur dissolves into an impersonal being, intoxicated, through the recurrence of this fundamental drive.

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