女性自我之重塑：瑪格莉特•愛特伍德《女神諭》中的嘲仿志異

Abstract

瑪格莉特•愛特伍德的《女神諭》是一部從多角度嘲仿志異的作品。愛特伍德不謹藉由嘲仿志異來探討志異小說的傳統，更深入思考此一傳統如何影響女性讀者，進而試圖為女性尋找走出此一傳統限制的可能性。愛特伍德的嘲仿志異從小說的女主角（瓊•佛斯特）展開，瓊本身就是一個浪漫志異小說的讀者與作家，身為讀者，瓊過度沈溺於志異的幻想中而於現實生活面臨許多窘境，她為自己捏造各種身份來解決問題，結果卻讓自己活得更像志異小說中被恐懼籠罩的女主角，直到她嘲仿自己的志異小說，才看穿志異小說背後性別建構機制，也由於這一層體悟給予她的多重身份新的意義和力量。值得注意的是瓊的問題來自於志異傳統最後解決於重寫志異，愛特伍德則由嘲仿志異而突破此文類的陳規，這種在問題內檢視問題的自我反省模式正是本文所欲討論的，自我反省的風格同為志異文類和後現代主義的精神，我將分三章來討論愛特伍德如何藉由嘲仿展現此一精神。論文第一章，首先經由回顧志異小說的發展歷史來呈現志異小說的傳統及其與女性讀者的關係，最後回到愛特伍德創造《女神諭》的時空背景來推論其創作動機；論文第二章，由瓊的志異創作和現實生活兩個層面來分析愛特伍德如何嘲仿志異文類；論文第三章，釐清瓊所面對的恐懼為何，以及其後她如何藉由重寫自己的志異小說而理解志異文類中性別建構的運作，最後走出恐懼面對自己。而愛特伍德對志異嘲仿同時也於瓊的自我反省和自我探索旅程中完成。

Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle, a story centering upon Joan Foster, a Gothic writer of Romance, presents a parodic vision of the Gothic conventions. In this novel, Atwood revamps and probes the Gothic conventions to reflect how people, particularly women, are shaped by them and to look into the im/possibility of constructing female subjectivities within a patriarchal ideology. There are two layers of Atwood’s parody of the Gothic—the parody of Joan’s Gothic works and that of her real life. In “reality,” as a Gothic reader, Joan’s dependence on the Gothic fantasy makes her a Gothic heroine on the run. Such a comedic vision becomes a part of Atwood’s parody of the fixed feminine images in the Gothic conventions. On the other hand, Joan’s problems about her relationship with her mother and her various identities will not be solved until she rethinks and rewrites her own Gothic tales. As a Gothic writer, Joan goes through three phases of Gothic creation in which she finally finds the exit from the Gothic maze. She releases herself from the Gothic conventions by parodying her own Gothic romances and her self-reflecting parody also bestows meanings upon her multiple selves. Through the postmodernist reading, the nature of self-reflexivity is clearly revealed in Atwood’s parodic Gothic and it is also the self-reflexivity that endows Joan’s multiple selves with the power to free herself from the confinement of patriarchy. Hence, in Lady Oracle, Atwood parodies Joan’s life/ reality and her Gothic writing/fantasy to undermine the seemingly realistic conventions of the Gothic from within. She successfully examines how gender is constructed in the genre, and how these constructions can be challenged and changed.