創痛的身體Wertenbaker及Kane之戰爭劇作中的性暴力演繹

The Bodies in Pain: Sexual Violence in the War Plays by Timberlake Wertenbaker and Sarah Kane

本文擬探討Timberlake Wertenbaker的＂The Love of the Nightingale＂及SarahKane的Blasted中的性暴力議題和舞台演繹，提出英國女劇作家對於戰爭中性暴力的一種看法和立場。兩位女作家對性暴力產生的看法相近：社會中的男性武力和征服慾望導致女性遭受強暴，而戰爭時期的性暴行，甚至戰爭本身，則是平和時期性暴力的延續。其次，她們將兩性之間的暴力問題擴展到種族、宗教、政治上「自我─他者」之間的衝突和爭戰，揭示西方強權自我對弱勢他者長久歧視與排拒的後果。再者，Wertenbaker和Kane將性暴力呈演於舞台上，同樣聚焦於身體所承受的傷害和痛苦，致使性暴力場面排除了挑逗觀眾、激起肉體歡愉的可能。最後，本文視戰時性暴力如同政治刑求，運用Elaine Scarry在The Body inPain中對被刑求身體的論述，指出劇中在戰時遭強暴、承受痛苦的身體，轉化成力量的標誌，象徵武力、霸權的絕對力量。

This essay attempts to explore the sexual violence and its enactment in Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Love of the Nightingale (1988) and Sarah Kane's Blasted (1995). Both women playwrights offer a similar explanation of the cause of sexual violence: men are brought up to be macho and are accustomed to using violence, which makes male violence become the basis of men's control over women. The cultivation of strength among men finds its peak in war, in which rape and other violations are committed. The male violence against women is further expanded by Wertenbaker and Kane into the conflict between Self and Other, exposing the consequence of Western discrimination and exclusion of its Other. In addition, Wertenbaker and Kane put sexual violence on stage, with a focus on the bodily suffering and pain; as a result, the bodies in pain refuse the eroticization of sexual violence and the scopophilic gaze. In conclusion, the essay proposes to see wartime rape as political torture and, by employing Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain, the raped/tortured bodies in Wertenbaker's and Kane's theatres of war can thus be converted into an assertion of the regime's force, an emblem of the destructive, authoritarian power, be it political, religious, racial, or cultural.