女性江湖──荻宜的武俠小說研究

Swordswomen’s World: An Investigation into Di Yi’s Wuxia Novels

本文是第一個專篇探討台灣首位女性武俠小說家荻宜的研究。1980年前的台灣武俠由男性作家獨霸武林；緣此，研究台灣第一位女性武俠小說家就顯得格外重要。本文首先探析荻宜何以在台灣武俠小說總體量能已進入衰微期的1980年後才開始創作。根據第一手訪談的分析得出：由於台灣從未有女性武俠寫手而促使荻宜萌生創作動機，並且在習武、飽覽中西名著與精通命相學、中醫學及古典樂器的多元專業後，主動向報刊主編表明欲望，爾後在稿約不斷與女性讀者的佳評回饋下創作大量武俠小說。顯見荻宜乃是為了滿足自我的創作欲求而非外在的名利，是女性作家對自我主體性完成的內在驅力。
身為女性作家的荻宜，自覺的要與男性武俠有所區隔，因此她的每一部作品幾乎都是以女俠為敘述主軸，女性或是武功最高強者，或是最足智多謀者，或是承擔復國復仇的重責大任者，有別於男性武俠中僅是瓶花的女性；並以柔性感官的武藝讓男性無法掌握招架，進而翻轉俠骨柔情的男性武俠範式，從而展現對父權的反思。武功既是武俠世界的話語權，那麼以柔克剛的荻宜正是企圖以流動、邊緣的戰鬥位置，對抗男性武俠書寫的中心主流。荻宜就在既定武俠書寫的框限下，打造出某種程度上不同於傳統陽剛氣息濃厚的女性江湖。

This paper is the first to investigate specifically the first Taiwanese female martial arts novelist, Di Yi. As the wuxia (i.e., martial heroes, martial arts, and chivalry) literary scene in Taiwan was dominated by male writers before 1980, it is of particular importance to study Taiwan’s first female martial arts novelist. This article first examines why Di Yi began writing after 1980, a time when the overall production and volume of Taiwanese wuxia novels were in decline. Analyses of interviews with Di Yi suggest that the absence of a female martial arts novelist in Taiwan prompted her to write. Having practiced martial arts, read a wide range of Chinese and Western literature, and mastered diverse professional skills such as fortune telling, Chinese medicine, and classical musical instruments, she took the initiative to express her wish for creative writing to the editor-in-chief of a newspaper. Thereafter, with incessant writer contracts and positive feedback from female readers, she has written an ample number of martial heroine novels, demonstrating that Di Yi wrote to quench her thirst for creativity but not to quest for external fame and fortune. This is her female novelist’s internal driving force to construct her Subjectivity.
As a female writer, Di Yi is conscious of the need to distinguish the main characters from male martial heroes. Hence, unlike mere female arm candy portrayed in male-centered wuxia novels, almost every one of her works focuses on female chivalry narratives, in which women are either the most skilled, wise, and resourceful martial artists, or those who bear the heavy responsibilities to restore their countries and retaliate on behalf of their fathers. By defeating male characters with martial arts featured by tender and flexible sensibilities, she inverses the male martial paradigm of chivalry, showing her reflection on and critique of patriarchy. Since martial arts are the discourse power in the world of wuxia, Di Yi's softness over hardness is precisely her attempt to confront the male-centered mainstream of wuxia writing with a fluid, marginal combat position. Within the limits of established wuxia writing frameworks, Di Yi has created a swordswomen’s Jiang Hu (i.e., world), which is to some extent different from the traditional masculine aura.