On Undecidability In Parkhurst’s The Dogs Of Babel

The Dogs of Babel (2003) is the debut novel of American author Carolyn Parkhurst (1971-). It is about Lexy’s death. Paul tries to teach dog Lorelei to speak so as to obtain the answer of whether Lexy, his wife, died by suicide or by accident. In the novel, author Parkhurst illustrates readers many undecidable signifiers concerning Lexy’s suicide. This thesis is going to analyze these undecidable signs to demonstrate that Lexy’s suicide is involved in a variety of undecidabilities of the signs, the language and the incident itself. The whole undecidability of the text is a challenge of Deconstruction for ultimate meaning.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part is the introduction to Carolyn Parkhurst and her first novel of The Dogs of Babel as well as Postmodernism Theory of Deconstruciton. And then, it presents literature reviews of The Dogs of Babel by critics and scholars at home and abroad. Next, the purpose and significance of the thesis are to be presented.The second part mainly demonstrates uncertainty of Lexy’s suicide in formation. It aims at revealing Parkhurst’s conception constructed by Derrida’s idea of Undecidability. Parkhurst puts many seeming-true or seeming present signs to present readers numerous seeming-suicide clues. Through analyses of these clues of wordplay in names, deferred Lorelei and rearranged books in the bookshelf, it can be tested that signs as clues of Lexy’s suicide are just regarded as substituted present. Lexy’s death is in undecidability of suicide and non-suicide deferring in the space and differring in time. As a result, the conclusion of Lexy’s death becomes diversified, uncertain, ambulatory and multivoiced.The third part mostly talks about undecidable signifiers melt into characters’ shaping and plot’s constitution in The Dogs of Babel. These signifiers include fairy tales and the tarot. According to 3 tragic fairy tales--- Tam Lin, Blue Mary and Lorelei, the author shapes characters of the story in relation to characters of fairy tales. She shapes Paul as Tam Lin, constructs Lexy as morbidity, and designs Lorelei as tragedy in the novel. Fairy tale is unreliable, and characters’shaping is in uncertainty. By means of the tarot, Parkhurst constructs the plot-development as consistent as what tarot predict in the novel. Tarot is itself uncertain, Lexy’s suicide from tarot’s indication is indeterminate.The fourth part is about contradictory factors of Lexy’s death in undecidability. Firstly, Lexy is stuck in a contradiction of morbidity and non-morbidity. The author makes Lexy’s morbidity defer in space and vary in time, and shows she is sometimes morbid, and sometimes non-morbid. This contradiction reveals Lexy’s morbidity in mobility and provides an undecidability of her suicide. Secondly, Paul’s contradiction in language influences the judgment of Lexy’s death. Paul is a linguist with tongue-tired defect, the experiment of teaching dog to speak is contradictory with his own defect in language. It shows the answer of Lexy’s suicide from Paul’s utterance is uncertain. Thirdly, Lorelei’s utterance in contradiction results in Lexy’s death in undecidability. Author Parkhurst also designs the contradiction in Lorelei’s language. Dog’s nature of non-speaking and Paul’s attempt of dog’s speaking contains a contradiction. What witness Lorelei could talk about how Lexy died is uncertain. From this point, such contradicitons push mystery of Lexy’s death into a process of diversity, opening and mobility.The last part is the conclusion. Parkhurst skillfully applies Derrida’s undecidability idea of "X and Not-X" to the arrangement of Lexy’s death. The answer of Lexy’s death is uncertain or impossible in most circumstances. The possibility of Lexy’s non-suicide from above signifiers is a deduction, based on impossibility, which makes the answer of Lexy’s death in indeterminacy. Denying legal and medical judgment of Lexy’s suicide is impossible. Wordplay, fairy tales and tarot etc. act as presence of absence and absence of presence in Lexy’s death, and defer to put Lexy’s death in a platform of diversity, opening and mobility. Even, varied contradictions of main characters of Lexy, Paul and Lorelei, further construct undecidability of Lexy’s death in diversity. Lexy’s death can be just signifier as the phenomenon of death. The true reason of Lexy’s death is never presented, uncertain, diversified. The death is an unlocking mystery without signified. Parkhurst constructs the novel of The Dogs of Babel from the framework of Derrida’s Deconstruction in undecidability. Meanwhile, the novel also supports the characteristics of post-structuralism, and shows signifier, undecidability and present-absence. The novel actually reflects a social phenomenon and shows universe varies in developing. It just presents a phenomenon of signifier. The essence of signified has gone with development.