New Woman Fiction and Fin de Siecle Urban Commodity Culture

Abstract

「新女性」傳統上被塑照成具有高漲政治意識、主張極端社會改變、及享有社經特權的色彩鮮明的形象，其前衛形象也是建立在超越及區分於大部分普通中下層女性的基礎之上，本文則試圖指山，新女性形象其實相當多面及錯綜，在許多世紀末新女性作家筆下的新女性，是以去極端化、強調其女性氣質和傳統英德、強調其和普通中下階層女性日益合一的形象出現，尤其新女性作爲在現代商品化都市里必須自立生存和工作的獨立奮鬥女性形象，更是濃縮及代表了普通女性進入現代城市空間所而臨機會和危險並存的錯綜經歷。這稱合一性，展現出世紀末都市現代性加速發展的外在影響，也體現女性主義策略的調整位移，值得深入探討。

The New Woman has been traditionally constructed as a more or less homogenized image of a radicalized, privileged figure with heightened political consciousness whose vanguardism is predicated upon her distance from the bulk of ordinary, non-political and less well-educated women. This paper argues that a contrastive, multi-layered and complicated image of the New Woman is presented in many female-penned New Woman writings of the fin de siecle period, writings that seek to de-radicalize the New Woman. Lo emphasize her femininity and her embodiment of both tradition and change, and to stress her convergence with ordinary modem women by casting her in the light of a representative urban woman struggling for livelihood and independence in the commodified fin de siecle city, where both broadened scopes and heightened dangers are recognized and candidly portrayed. This convergence reflects the impact of accelerated urban modernity but is also the result of shifts in feminist tactics, a situation that deserves detailed analysis.