《理查三世》和《替身》中之殘障建構

Constructing Deformity in Richard III and The Changeling

在前現代時期的英國，人們不僅只是用形體和生物學的詞彙來構想肢體的殘障；相反地，殘障被視為是「上天的懲罰」，是神譴的警告，也是政治災禍的預警。在莎士比亞的《理查三世》（1592）中對於駝背暴君理查三世的描寫和米德頓及羅利合著的《替身》（1622）中對長得像蟾蜍一樣的僕人迪佛洛斯的刻畫，均能夠反映當時的英國人對殘障的典型歧視。莎士比亞筆下內心邪惡、嚴重肢體殘障的理查三世，不僅為亨利都鐸對理查三世的竄位正名，也成為都鐸王朝建國神話的政治宣傳。米德頓及羅利戲劇中殘障的僕人迪佛洛斯，正如他的名字所影射的，僭越了傳統的社會階級，強暴了他主人的女兒；他大膽的性侵和階級僭越展現了十七世紀中葉僕役階級的巨大社會顛覆潛力。這些劇作家企圖用殘障角色的建構和消費來達到娛樂觀眾的效果，但是劇中殘障角色的建構和上演卻使得當時英國社會對殘障和社會弱勢的歧視更加深化和永存。

In early modern England, physical deformity was not merely conceptualized in physical, biological terms; rather, it was regarded as “the scourge of God”—as immanent warning of divine judgment and sign of political disaster. Such stereotypical bias about physical deformity is reflected most clearly in William Shakespeare’s dramatization of the hunchbacked tyrant, Richard Gloucester, in Richard III (1592), and Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s construction of the toad-like servant, Deflores, in The Changeling (1622). Shakespeare’s portrayal of the severely handicapped and mentally sinister Richard III not only helped legitimate Henry Tudor’s usurpation of Richard III but also served as political propaganda to consolidate the Tudor nation-building myth. Middleton and Rowley’s deformed servant, Deflores, transgresses traditional class boundaries by, true to his name, “deflowering” his master’s daughter; his audacious rape and class transgression demonstrate a formidably subversive potential in the mid-seventeenth-century servant class. All these playwrights aimed to entertain the audience via the construction and consumption of deformed figures; however, such staging of deformity perpetuated and helped internalize the oppression of the deformed and the socially vulnerable by figures of normalcy.