馴夫記：解讀《結局好萬事好》中的心理劇

The Taming of the Prodigal Husband: All’s Well That Ends Well as a Psychological Drama

《結局好萬事好》（又譯為《終成眷屬》）是莎士比亞初於倫敦劇壇嶄露頭角時期的作品，寫成於一五九零年代中期。本劇歷來並不受青睞：莎翁當代的觀眾不甚喜愛；演出率始終偏低；批評家鮮少給予好評。劇本描述一位棄婦忍辱完成一連串不可思議的艱鉅任務，終於挽回郎心。本劇原屬喜劇類，後世多將其歸類為「問題劇」，顯示它的劇型或核心議題難以清楚劃分為喜或悲。劇名出自於英文俗諺「結局好萬事好」，意謂凡事若能獲得好的結局，相形之下過程的波折實在微不足道；而「終成眷屬」的意譯則適切點出這段姻緣歷經百折千磨方能成就。唯其如此，劇終的曖昧陰鬱特別令人困惑不安，也是歷代學者著墨的焦點，四百多年以來成為莎劇研究裡的一樁公案。本劇究竟是莎翁的瑕疵作品，抑或是作家別有用心，寓意於弦外呢？本文以精神分析理論作為詮釋工具，援引克萊恩「客體關係」要義，試圖描繪男主人翁由青春晚期步入成年的心靈圖輿，解析他固執抗婚的心理機轉。這樣的分析路徑或許能提供《結局好萬事好》另一觀察視野，解釋這齣「問題劇」的核心問題正是男主人翁的自我掙扎：他必須面對生存在一個不完美的世界，成長之痛乃是跨入成人門檻必要的代價。他最後瞭悟：情愛不僅只是浪漫情懷，而毋寧是個人複雜的自我調適經驗。《結局好萬事好》正是男性成長故事的戲劇化呈現，體悟的起步開啟成人之旅。本劇看似勉強「終成眷屬」的結尾，實則呼應成長的複雜情愫，劇本的屬性自然也溢出喜劇或悲劇的界定；宜乎歸類為「問題劇」。

All’s Well That Ends Well, a play produced when Shakespeare emerged as London’sleading playwright in the mid-1590s, seems to be nobody’s favorite: it was not popularwith its first audience, it is rarely acted, and it has seldom received much praisefrom critics. The play is about an abandoned wife who accomplishes a series ofseemingly impossible tasks in order to regain her prodigal husband. Though originallyclassified as a comedy, the play is now considered one of Shakespeare’s problemplays, so codified because they cannot be neatly classified as either tragedy or comedy.The title of this play is the proverb “all’s well that ends well,” which means theprocess does not really matter as long as the outcome is good. The ending of the play,however, has been a focus of critical discontent and has bothered its audience/readersfor four centuries. Is this disturbing ending an intended effect or simply a failed attemptof the Bard? I will answer this question in the following paper. Drawing on thetheories of psychoanalysis, particularly the object-relations of Melanie Klein(1882-1960), this essay aims to map out that space where a late adolescent is wrestlinghis way to adulthood and thereby spell out his resistance to marrying the heroine.I propose that this is a key to understanding the play and to explaining its lukewarmreception. The main problem of this play, I shall argue, rests on the hero’smental pain or growing pain of not living in an ideal world. His final recognition thatlove itself is not simply a phantasy but a matter of complex adjustments marks thebeginning of his real, adult journey. To read All’s Well as a rich inner phantasy life ofBertram, I shall look at the psychological processes of the hero and how they are putinto the context of crucial experiences of his story and relationships.