《桑青與桃紅》與《海神家族》中的創傷與生命書寫

Abstract

本論文嘗試以跨學科研究方法探討個人創傷與集體創傷在聶華苓的《桑青與桃紅》與陳玉慧的《海神家族》中的再現。論文第一章將兩部小說及其作者的生命經驗自述並置，藉此研究兩位作者如何在其作品中描繪己身創傷記憶，並且也比較兩部小說成型的時代脈絡如何影響作者對創傷的再現。聶華苓與陳玉慧以小說形式再現創傷的做法呼應了多位創傷研究學者的論點：創傷為受創者所帶來的極大壓力將導致創傷無法被全然感知且無法被精確呈現，因此創傷敘事中敘述者的角度無法絕對化且敘述者需要對創傷事件進行再創造。這個再創造的過程呼應敘事治療的基本理念。敘事治療作為後現代取向的心理諮商學派，強調每位案主的敘事皆是在特定脈絡下建構而成；在諮商過程中，案主在諮商師協助下解構原先的敘事並進一步創造出「替代故事」。因在《桑青與桃紅》與《海神家族》中，兩位作者分別將個人、家族創傷與國族創傷事件交織呈現，且皆持女性觀點，本論文提出此兩本小說在兩方面可被視作其作者的「替代故事」：首先，兩位作者在文本中融合生命經驗敘事與虛構元素，以此作為自身創傷記憶的「替代故事」；另外，兩位作者以女性觀點所創造出的「替代故事」也構成可抗衡主流國族敘事中的男性中心觀點。論文第二章分析《桑青與桃紅》與《海神家族》中的女性角色刻畫，探討其作者如何避免讓這些背負歷史創傷的女性成為父權體制下的絕對弱者；此章借用胡克絲（bell hooks）以邊陲作為策略性反抗空間的觀點，提出兩位作者使文本中的受創傷女性形成「自邊陲發出的顛覆性聲音」，也因此提供了對抗主流論述的觀點。

This thesis is an interdisciplinary scholarly attempt to explore how individual traumas and colletive traumas are represented in Hualing Nieh’s Mulberry and Peach and Jade Y. Chen’s Mazu’s Bodyguards. In Chapter One, I juxtapose the two novels with Nieh’s and Chen’s accounts of their lived experiences, in order to investigate how Nieh and Chen transfer their traumatic memories into their literary works, and how the historical and social contexts they were in affected their artistic representation of traumas. As Nieh and Chen represent traumas in the novelistic mode, their deeds correspond to a crucial point held by many trauma studies scholars: since the overwhelming power of trauma leads to its impossibility of being fully perceived and accurately presented by people, in trauma narratives too definite positions of recounting the traumatic experiences should be avoided and recreating the traumatic events is needed. This recreation process corresponds to the basic philosophy of narrative therapy, a branch of postmodern psychotherapy approaches. Narrative therapy suggests that the story told by every client is constructed within certain context; during the treatment, the predominant problematic story should be deconstructed and replaced by “alternative stories.” Due to the fact that in both Mulberry and Peach and Mazu’s Bodyguards the two authors reveal their individual and family traumatic stories embedded in national traumatic events through the female perspective, I consider that there are two aspects in which the two texts constitute their authors’ “alternative stories.” First, by interweaving depictions of their lived experiences with fictional elements in the texts, Nieh and Chen tell the “alternative stories” as substitutes for the traumatic memories that have been haunting them in real life. Moreover, Nieh and Chen provide “alternative stories” to counter the male-dominated discourses in mainstream national narratives. In Chapter Two, I examine how Nieh and Chen, as witnesses to women’s sufferings during national unrest, eschew symbolically re-victimizing those female bearers of historical traumas in their “alternative stories.” Borrowing bell hooks’ theory about the margin as a strategic space of resistance, I consider that Nieh’s and Chen’s portrayals of those traumatized women constitute “the subversive voices from the margins” that can provide counter-perspectives against the predominant discourses.