《離開麥肯齊先生之後》和《巴黎之屋》中的母職矛盾情感與多態樣貌

Abstract

在第一次世界大戰之後，英國為了要恢復戰後時期的社會秩序與安定，母職於是被高度地推崇與鼓勵。理想母親的形象被重塑。不管是政府政策、法令規定，還是如雜誌等的媒體都聯合起來協同塑造此一理想的母親形象。\n\n珍．瑞絲 (Jean Rhys) 和伊莉莎白．鮑文 (Elizabeth Bowen) 這兩位小說家對於母職和母子關係的相關議題皆是很是關注。在她們的小說中，珍．瑞絲與伊莉莎白．鮑文藉由揭露了以下的事實，來使母職此概念更加有深度與複雜： 這些事實包括了，不是每位女性都適合當母親、矛盾情感在母職中佔有重要的一席之地、現實中存在著不同模式的母職。這些事實在在都指向主流母職意識型態不只是有問題，而且僅僅是個迷思。透過分析珍．瑞絲與伊莉莎白．鮑文在文本中所揭示出的母職此概念，激發讀者注意到兩次世界大戰之間的時期之母職意識型態的不可能性、排外特性和對母子關係的負面影響。珍．瑞絲與伊莉莎白．鮑文使讀者注意到此母職意識型態中被隱藏起來或未言說的部份。\n\n艾德麗安．里奇 (Adrienne Rich)、潔西卡．本傑明 (Jessica Benjamin) 和羅茲辛卡．帕克 (Rozsika Parker) 所提出關於母職中的矛盾情感和母子關係的相關概念可作為分析與檢驗珍．瑞絲與伊莉莎白．鮑文的小說的啓門之鑰。里奇提出的概念中，把母職分為女性的親身經驗和一種規訓母親的制度。本傑明則是提出“互為主體性” (intersubjectivity) 的概念。而帕克受到前面二位學者的啟發，她定義了母職中的矛盾情感，且把此矛盾情感轉為富有創造力的角色。\n\n在此論文中，我試著運用此三位女性主義理論家的理論來論證，珍．瑞絲與伊莉莎白．鮑文，有別於她們的文學前輩，在兩次世界大戰之間時期的英國，極度推崇完美卻充滿霸權色彩、僵化與不切實際的母親形象的背景下，於她們小說中，率先闡明母子關係中的矛盾情感與提出母職的多種樣貌。

To maintain social order and stability during the inter-war period in Britain, motherhood was highly promoted. The image of the ideal mother was reconstructed, and governmental politics, legitimate laws, and media such as magazines were all allied to valorize and help construct the ideology of motherhood.\n\nJean Rhys in After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1931) and Elizabeth Bowen in The House in Paris (1935) share common concerns about motherhood and mother-child relationships. In their novels, Rhys and Bowen complicate the concept of motherhood by exploring the facts that not every woman is suited to be a mother, that ambivalence is a crucial element in motherhood, and that various models of motherhood exist, all of which point to the ideology of motherhood being merely a “myth.” The exploration of these writers and the concept of motherhood draws attention to the ideology of motherhood in the inter-war years, that is, its impossibility, exclusiveness, and detrimental effects on mothers and their children. The writers cause readers to pay close attention to the unspoken part hidden in the ideology of motherhood. The writers also demonstrate how those women who choose not to be mothers are oppressed and marginalized and how they react.\n\nThe theories of Adrienne Rich, Jessica Benjamin, and Rozsika Parker, in terms of maternal ambivalence and the mother-child relationship, work as a doorstep to examine and analyze Rhys’s and Bowen’s novels. While Rich explicitly distinguishes the motherhood of women’s lived experiences from the institution of motherhood, and while Benjamin emphasizes the concept of “intersubjectivity” in the mother-child relationship, Parker redefines maternal ambivalence and turns it into a “creative role.” Incorporating the theories of Adrienne Rich, Jessica Benjamin, and Rozsika Parker, I argue that, unlike their predecessors, Jean Rhys and Elizabeth Bowen foreground the ambivalence of the mother-child relationship in their novels and provide alternatives of motherhood against the backdrop of the idealized, hegemonic, and rigid maternal image in the mainstream ideology of motherhood in inter-war Britain.