《明史‧列女傳》的暴力、情緒、痛覺與女性形象的書寫

The Description of Violence, Emotions, Pain, and the Images of Female in the Biographies of Exemplary Women in Ming shi (Ming shi, Lieh-nu chuan)

本文從《明史．列女傳》的敘事筆法談起，循傳記書寫和性別意識兩條線索，析論傳文中結合暴力、情緒和痛覺的敘事手法，型塑何種女性形象。本文指出，傳記裡數量相當多且極為詳細、誇張、血腥的暴力情節；女性面臨暴力威脅，或自己施予暴力時出現的哭泣和怒罵兩種情緒反應；以及幾近被傳記作者隱沒的疼痛感覺，這般敘事方式將女性的故事凝結在生命即將結束之際。其在讀者眼前展演的，是被書寫文字隱沒的受害者、掌握身體性命的行動者、女德價值的實踐者，三種在列女傳記中相互關聯的形象。傳文敘事裡的暴力情節，將三張面孔融匯在一起，凸顯這些婦女是主動殉死，將節烈道德、倫常體系付諸實行。在《明史．列女傳》裡，由男性史家記述那些受盡折磨，被毀傷的身軀、破開的創口、哭泣的眼淚、怒罵的聲音，都成為具現節烈觀念的載體，向社會大眾訴說貞節烈女的生命故事。本文更嘗試提出一種看法：暴力或許可能是女德傳記書寫的文化規範；女性也是身處其中，同時參與了規範的建構。女性揮使暴力的身影，讓她們在男性史家製作的歷史文本中，成為那個同時被建構和參與建構的辯證性主體。

 

This paper starts from the narrative style of the Biographies of Exemplary Women in Ming shi (Ming shi, Lieh-nu chuan), and follows the two clues of biography and gender consciousness to analyze what kind of female images are shaped by the narrative techniques combined with violence, emotion and pain perception in the biography. This paper points out that there are numerous and extremely detailed, exaggerated and bloody episodes of violence in biographies; the emotional responses of women to threats of violence, or to crying and cursing when they themselves inflict violence; the pains that are almost hidden by the biographer. This narrative condensed women’s stories at the end of their lives. The Biographies of Exemplary Women displayed in front of readers, the victims who are hidden by written words, the actors who control their body and life, and the practitioners of women’s moral values, these three images that are related to each other in the biography. The narrative of the text integrated the three faces together, highlighting that these women are active martyrdom death and put into practice the system of strict morality and ethics. In the Biographies of Exemplary Women in Ming shi, male historians recorded the tortured and mutilated bodies, broken wounds, crying tears and angry voices, all of which became the carriers of the concept of chastity, telling the life story of virtuous and heroic women to the public. This paper tries to put forward a view: violence may be the cultural norms of women’s biography; Women are also involved in the construction of the norms. In the historical texts produced by male historians, women who act violently are the dialectical subjects that are constructed and participate in the construction of the norms of the biography.