鄉關何處──論《桑青與桃紅》的陰性書寫與離散文化

Where Is Homeland - Écriture Féminine and Diaspora in Hualing Nieh’s Mulberry and Peach

《桑青與桃紅》這本小說初次與台灣的讀者見面是在七○年代初，在《聯合報》副刊上連載，然而卻因為當時的政治及語言尺度的問題，因而被迫腰斬。之後《桑青與桃紅》就如小說的主角經歷飄泊與離散，一九九○年這本小說榮獲美國書卷獎，而美國各大學院校開始以這本小說作為教科書，探討小說關於國族認同與雙重文化的意涵，使小說成為離散文化（Diaspora）研究的文本，大學裏女性文學、少數民族文學、比較文學的學者與學生在課堂上討論這本小說，賦予小說文本多重的論述位置。這本小說與台灣讀者再次會晤，在一九九七年時由時報文化公司出版，近年來漸漸獲得台灣學者的青睞，紛紛為這本形式與內涵都十分複雜殊異的小說，撰文進行剖析及論述，同時這本小說也被選錄於邱貴芬主編《日據以來台灣女作家小說選讀》（女書文化，2001）。這本小說在台灣文化界知識系譜裏，從原先被排除、消音，在異鄉流離失所十多年，最後回到台灣，並且從知識系譜的邊緣進入中心，發出它獨特的聲音及觀點，進而在台灣女性小說史上佔有一席之地，這本小說的出版史及讀者接受史可說正是呼應著台灣的政治氣候及文化思潮。這本小說的出版背景是如此地精彩，在詭譎的政治風向與民族認同的潮汐起落間載浮載沈，而小說文本的敘事形式與象徵語言更宛若一座迂迴的文字迷宮，小說主角的多重身份與時空的離散經驗，比起小說出版的離散經驗更是不遑多讓，小說人物桑青經歷中國日本侵略，國共爭戰，台灣白色恐怖，以及移民美國，然而在大歷史敘事的框架下，我們所閱讀到的是桑青私密的日記，及桃紅寫給美國移民官的信件，此種敘事形式預告著國族歷史與個人小歷史的交錯，而更重要的是一個父權中心「男性豐功偉業」與邊緣「女性私德日記」的辯證交鋒，故筆者在本文試圖解讀作者採用的主題意涵，象徵結構及敘事模式，以及其女性日記信件的敘事模式如何遊走於強大的國族論述的縫隙間，達到女性主義「微觀政治」（micropolitics）的顛覆性，使女性的聲音能浮出於歷史的表面。筆者也將探討這本小說如何將國族論述與性別政治緊密地結合在一起，形成高度寓言體的敘事結構，開啟女性書寫的新格局與新方向。

Mulberry and Peach: Two Women from China is a novel concerned about diaspora. For the characters in this text, identity has always been a significant, intractable issue in their life. For women, identity is inextricably bounded up with space and gender. The study thus is aimed to explore the complicated issues of space and identity presented in two women characters: Mulberry and Peach. This paper is organized as follows. Section One briefs the historical contexts of the novel and the major arguments of the thesis. Section Two discusses the intricate relationships between place, identity, and nation. For a woman, she has to leave home, leave the husband, so she can get rid of the violent of symbolic order. Through presenting the characters’ divergent imaginations of the “homelands”, Hualing Nieh disrupts the sanctification of homeland in support of nationalism. Section Three probes the relationships between the discourse of Confucian school and the sexual politics. Hualing Nieh uses the display narrative strategy to break through the iron cage of Confucian patriarchy. Section Four explores the potentials of empowerment through displacements (/border-crossing) and elaborates the feminine writing techniques employed by Nieh to demonstrate the limitation of the traditional literary paradigms and to inquire the domination of boundaries. The French feminist theories on woman’s libido and the psychoanalytic and linguistic viewpoints will be developed into this section. On textual analysis, this study elaborate on the style, theme, and spirit of this modern novel correspond a great deal to the ideal of a feminine poetics, namely the écriture féminine proposed by Hélène Cixous. In the process of reading/writing a feminine text, the postmodern subjectivity, which is capable of heterogeneity, fluidity and openness, is constructed from the two women characters, i.e. Mulberry and Peach. Finally, this section concludes the major arguments through a brief discussion of the image of fluidity presented in the novel.