《覺醒》和《黃色壁紙》：一個物質女性主義式的閱讀

The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper: A Material Feminist Perspective

十九世紀末的吉爾曼（Charlotte Perkins Gilman）的《黃色壁紙》（The Yellow Wallpaper）和蕭邦（Kate Chopin）的《覺醒》（The Awakening）是兩部經典女性主義文本。有別於馬克思女性主義的歷史唯物論觀點關注於女性生活的經濟物質層面以及女性如何遭到物化，本文企圖以受到新物質主義（New Materialism）影響的物質女性主義（Material Feminism）觀點出發重新閱讀這兩部女性主義文本。以新物質主義式的閱讀方法爬梳兩本經典小說對於空間的描寫，強調個人所處的空間（例如家屋）的物質性深刻影響居住者心理狀態，而此空間環境也與當時的社會環境、文化、歷史、論述息息相關，共同形塑主人翁觀照自己與世界的方式。本論文主張故事主人翁的「瘋狂」並非源自自身疾病、丈夫的態度或父權意識形態的箝制而已，物質環境對其身心的影響使得她們更加看清人與物之間的關係，而其本身原有的症狀更因是否受到物質環境的桎梏而更加劇或解脫。本文一方面檢視作品中女性和父權體制裡的性別與政治糾葛，一方面也可以見到父權壓迫宰制滲透到有形無形的居者內外環境，物質能動性（material agency）如何悄然地影響女主角的內心世界甚至她們的生命。透過物質女性主義對「物」的看法，彰顯文本中居所、空間、海洋、黃壁紙等看得見或看不見的「物」對於女主角的情緒／情感影響。強調從「物」的觀點可以重新開啟文本與世界的對話，並為兩個十九世紀的女性文本帶來某種另類思考。 This essay examines two authoritative, feminist texts: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), focusing on how material agency, with or without agents, functions in both texts. Instead of simply looking at the economic and material dimensions of women’s lives, which are the concerns of the Marxist materialist approach, this essay argues that gender and political struggle between the female protagonists and patriarchal society as a whole can be better understood from the perspective of material feminism, which is influenced by new materialism. How matter, such as sea, ocean, the yellow wallpaper, ideology of patriarchy, Eden-like nature, magnificent mansions, whether visible or invisible, in the two novels interacts with the two protagonists respectively is pivotal in construction of their emotion and lives. This essay discusses how “vibrant matter” or “forces of things” (Jane Bennett) forms “a site of narrativity” (Iovino and Oppermann) and provides an alternative reading of these two nineteenth-century feminist texts.

This essay examines two authoritative, feminist texts: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), focusing on how material agency, with or without agents, functions in both texts. Instead of simply looking at the economic and material dimensions of women’s lives, which are the concerns of the Marxist materialist approach, this essay argues that gender and political struggle between the female protagonists and patriarchal society as a whole can be better understood from the perspective of material feminism, which is influenced by new materialism. How matter, such as sea, ocean, the yellow wallpaper, ideology of patriarchy, Eden-like nature, magnificent mansions, whether visible or invisible, in the two novels interacts with the two protagonists respectively is pivotal in construction of their emotion and lives. This essay discusses how “vibrant matter” or “forces of things” (Jane Bennett) forms “a site of narrativity” (Iovino and Oppermann) and provides an alternative reading of these two nineteenth-century feminist texts.