《葛根婆的縫衣針》一劇之遊民、家庭主婦、與髒亂之性別政治

The Sporty Bedlam, Idle Housewives, and the Gender Politics of Dirt in Gammer Gurton’s Needle

遊民問題是前現代英國社會最困擾的社會問題之一。在當時英國人的眼中，這些貧困的無業遊民不但行為脫序、居無定所，也常是髒亂、污染、與麻煩的源頭。當時的大眾文學更常將其描繪成危害善良社會之罪犯。儘管當時主流文化對遊民普遍觀感惡劣，《葛根婆婆的針》（c. 560）一劇卻以輕鬆幽默的方式呈現其遊民的主角Diccon，輕描淡寫地處理其諸多搗亂的行為。現代批評家一方面淡化處理Diccon的負面行為，另一方面則傾向把與遊民相關的髒亂與脫序等問題歸咎到劇中其他的村民，特別是Gammer Gurton和她的鄰居Dame Chat兩個單身女人的身上。如此一來，他們不只淡化了遊民問題在當時的重要性，更複製了當時把女人（特別是獨立持家的女人）視為危險與混亂之來源的刻板印象。本文主張該劇透過對Diccon喜劇化的處理無疑是將對遊民的焦慮轉嫁到兩位單身的家庭主婦身上。而這種轉嫁動作之所以能成立，主要因為遊民與家庭主婦都常與髒亂和懶惰連想在一起。表面上，前現代英國的家庭主婦應該是髒亂的天敵，因為她們不僅需要負責維持家裡的清潔，也要清理家園四周的環境。然而，正因為她們必須經常清除各種垃圾汙垢，她們難免也會受其污染，無法隨時保持自己外表的整齊清潔，而招來懶惰的指控。從這個角度看來，《葛根婆婆的針》一劇中所呈現的髒亂與其代表了兩位女主人的懶惰與無能，其實反映了她們每天要面對髒亂、永遠無法根除髒亂的困境。然而，由於她們與骯髒汙垢之曖昧卻又親近的關係，她們也容易成為眾人懷疑與批評的目標，進而成為Diccon所帶來之諸多混亂的代罪羔羊。

In early modern England, one of the most pressing social problems was vagrancy. Unemployed and deprived, vagrants were not only considered rootless and disorderly, but associated and even conflated with dirt, pollution and peril that threatened to endanger the society. In popular literature, they were also portrayed as despicable and immoral criminals, threatening to endanger respectable society and the state. Although contemporaries’ perception of vagrants is generally negative, the representation of bedlam Diccon in Gammer Gurton’s Needle (c. 1560) seems far from typical in its light-hearted portrayal of his disorderly behavior. If the play downplays the negative implications of Diccon as a bedlam, critics replicate this tendency as well. In their reading, the kind of dirt and disorder usually associated with vagrants are attributed, instead, to the villagers, more specifically to Gammer Gurton and Dame Chat. This way, critics not only downplay the problem of vagrancy, but also reinforce a contemporary stereotype of woman, especially independent single woman, as the source of danger and disorder. It is the contention of this article that, while the play displaces anxiety about vagrancy onto the two housewives, such a displacement is facilitated by the conceptual conflation between women and vagrants, a conflation made possible by their common association with dirtiness and idleness. Ostensibly, early modern housewives had a close affinity with cleanliness because they were responsible for purifying their households from every kind of dirt and disorder. However, forced by their duty to have direct, frequent contact with waste matter, they also risked being polluted by it, which simultaneously rendered them suspect of idleness. From this perspective, the dirt and disorder in Gammer Gurton’s Needle represent not so much the two housewives’ idleness and incompetence as the very work that they struggle with everyday. Due to their intimate yet ambivalent relationship with dirt and disorder, they become easy targets for suspicion and censure, and are scapegoated for Diccon’s errant behavior.