失能與動物性重啟威廉斯的《玻璃動物園》

Disability and Animality: Revisiting Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie

美國劇作家威廉斯的成名作品《玻璃動物園》，自1944年首演以來，透過劇作家、劇中人物、劇評家及學者的話語，蘿拉的失能致使她極度害羞、脆弱、依賴、脫俗，以及象徵她不適存於現實社會的玻璃動物，尤其是獨角獸，留予觀眾和讀者深刻印象。本論文擬再探蘿拉的失能及其動物性的意涵。第一部份援用葛蘭德－湯森的「不適者」及「盯視」觀念，分析外在環境和他人盯視如何造成蘿拉失能／不正常。第二部份根據戴維斯、蒂曲蔻思基及卡麥隆關於「正常」的論述，闡釋代表能者／正常社會的母親阿曼達及「來訪紳士」吉姆對蘿拉所施予的正常化及其影響。第三部份運用德勒茲與瓜塔利的「變成－動物」理論，詮釋蘿拉的動物性：她與動物園小鳥、企鵝的親密關係及與玻璃動物，尤其是獨角獸，形同一體，展現不同形體和不同物種的平等、平和相處。結論部份指出蘿拉和動物結盟而成的失能聚合體，打破人類主義之正常、單一完整的論調，激發後人類主義對於納含多樣身體及物種的思考。

This paper explores the question of disability and animality in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1944). The first part uses Rosemarie Garland- Thomson’s theorizations of“misfits”and“staring”to examine how the effects of the environments and the gaze of others render Laura as a disabled/ abnormal character. The second section—based on the discourses on normalcy from Lennard J. Davis, Tanya Titchkosky, and Colin Cameron—analyzes how Amanda and Jim, two representatives of the normal society, try to normalize Laura to fulfill the expectations of the society. The third part employs Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s“becoming-animal”to think through Laura’s animality. Her alliance with the birds and penguins in the zoo and the glass animals she collects, especially her favorite unicorn, shows a world in which different bodies and species get along peacefully. The paper concludes that, once liberated from bodily standards and social confines, Laura as a disability assemblage challenges the normalcy, unity, and hierarchy of humanism, and further presents an imagination of an alternative alliance, human and animal, for posthumanism.