南方與蠻荒——以中村地平的《臺灣小說集》為中心

South and Wilderness: A Case Study of Nakamura Jihei's “Collection of Taiwan Stories”

中村地平（1908-1963）在他的《台灣小說集》後記寫下這樣一段文字：「對於南方的鄉愁、南方的憧憬、南方的愛戀，是我一生永不改變的事。」讓他投入情厲的「南方」，無疑是在指涉台灣。中村對南方/台灣的鄉愁，不僅懷抱著蠻荒時代的野性憧憬，也蘊含了濃烈的浪漫主義。然而，一九三○年的霧社事件，衝擊了中村的南方憧憬。一九三九（昭和十四）年以降的創作，中村開始嘗試以小說來詮釋殖民地的歷史，他的南方想像也逐漸和日本帝國主義的南進政策有巧妙的結合。從嚮往南方的蠻荒末開化，到強調南方的蠻荒待開化，南方作為一個概念，其實是一種政治無意識（the political unconscious）的表徵。以日本為中心的地理觀，形塑了中村的南方想像。中村地平的南方文學，也成為帝國書寫的一環，無形中展開了認識南方的知識論。南方象徵與日本地理相對的蠻荒位置，南方是有待被文明開發的區域。在中村的台灣相關作品中，南方與蠻荒，變成可以互相指涉的對象。

In the afterword of his “Collection of Taiwan Stories', Nakamura Jihei(l908-1963)wrote down a statement as follows: “My nostalgia, aspiration, and love for Taiwan, are the unalterable career of my life.' The“south' as expressed in his short stories written during the late 1930's and early 1940's is undoubtedly a metaphor of Taiwan which, for him, betrayed a message as high implication of “wildemess' and “ barrenness' .Since the “Wu-She Incident' in 1930, a historical event during which the aboriginal Tayal tribe had suffered from an unprecedented genocide under Japanese merciless military attack, Nakamura had begun to try to interpret colonial history with his fiction writings which implicitly supported the “Southward Advance Policy' bolstered by Japanese imperialism. 'South' as a concept in his literary writings during this period was actually a representation of 'the political unconscious' In his Japan-centrist geopolitical perspectives, it is discernible that the “south' as wilderness was no more a place for mere aspiration, but a place for further cultivation. This subtle move as reflected in his fictions was accompanied by the progress of the Advance Policy in the 1940's. “ South' and “wilderness' thus become a pair of mutually referential metaphors which can be seen as a paradigm of imperial texts produced when war was reaching its apex.