鄉土想像的新貌：陳雪的《橋上的孩子》、《陳春天》裡的地方、性別、記憶

A New Phase of hsiang-tu Imagination: Place, Gender, and Memory in Chen Shueh's The Child on the Bridge and Chen Chuen-tien

兩千年以來台灣女性小說中新的鄉土想像透露對地方、性別與記憶錯綜關係的反思；常常是從已經移居台北、深諳資本主義運作的眼光。本文將處理陳雪的半自傳小說《橋上的孩子》（2004）、《陳春天》（2005）。雖然陳雪的兩部作品無意探討有關台灣的歷史大敘述，然而書中所描述的在豐原夜市討生活、嚮往白手起家卻一再投資失敗以致深陷債務泥淖的家庭，一再逃離又返家、熟悉媒體操作的女性敘述者，無疑是八、九○年代高度資本主義台灣的某種寫照。本文藉用邱貴芬對台灣女性鄉土想像的論點，再結合德立克（Arif Dirlik）「植基於地方的想像」（’place-based imagination’），探討《橋上的孩子》、《陳春天》中對豐原夜市和神岡鄉下的地方記憶、下層女性遭逢的性別與階級壓迫的交纏，以及階級爬升後如何交涉於城鄉之間，透過重新記憶和批判式的重構，讓土地認同再度變得可能。本文認為：兩書的女主角與資本主義共謀，但也對之抗拒。

Taiwan women's hsiang-tu (or homeland) fiction since 2000 presents a new phase of hsiang-tu imagination, which is characterized by a reflection on the complicated relationship between place, gender, and memory, and usually from the vantage point of one who has moved to Taipei and who is familiar with the mechanism of capitalism. This paper deals with Chen Shueh's semi-autobiographical collection of short stories The Child on the Bridge (2004) and novel Chen Chuen-tien (2005). Although these two works do not intend to deal with the grand narrative of Taiwan's history, their portrayals of a family which aspires to social advancement by a series of investments but which ends up in a night market in central Taiwan trying to pull itself out of debt, as well as the female narrator who knows how to manipulate the media, can be seen as a reflection on the highly capitalistic Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s. This paper applies Chiu Kuei-fen's views on Taiwan women's hsiang-tu fiction and Arif Dirlik's 〞place-based imagination〞 to explore Chen Shueh's hsiang-tu imagination in The Child on the Bridge and Chen Chuen-tien. The two works not only present vivid memories about two places--the night market in Fong-yuan and the village in rural Shen-kang--but portray how a lower-class woman experiences gender and class oppression in the two places and how after she has become an established writer in Taipei she negotiates between the country and the city. Through rememory and critical reconstruction, it then becomes possible for her to identify with her (home)land again. And, she shows that she is both complicit with and resistant to capitalism.