消費世紀末倫敦： 《朝聖之旅》裡的女性消費者

Abstract

作為新興的消費場域，十九世紀末的倫敦西區特別標記出女性在城市公共消費空間裡的流動性。隨著世紀末倫敦西區的主要街道上，商店、百貨公司、戲院、俱樂部、電影院、餐館如雨後春筍般出現，中產階級女性也逐漸掙脫傳統家庭私領域空間的束縛並湧現於城市異質空間裡。在城市裡購物、享樂、休憩或走逛瀏覽，這些新興的女性消費大眾享受了前所未有的公共設施與服務。然而女性消費者同時也成為前述各種消費機構的標的—所有的消費設施與服務都是包裝過的商業招攬，目的在吸引女性消費者金錢上的投入。在《朝聖之旅》（The Pilgrimage）裡，英國女性小說家桃樂絲‧理察森（Dorothy Richardson 1873-1957）再現了女性於十九世紀末城市裡的消費行為。小說裡關於女性消費的豐富敘述正適合作為研究世紀末女性、消費與性別空間跨越之文本。本篇論文因此擬探討《朝聖之旅》裡所呈現的女性在商品文化裡複雜的涉入，聚焦於世紀末女性身為新興的消費者之角色，並探究消費活動對於女性主體與日常活動空間造成之影響。

As an emerging site of female consumption, the West End of London in the fin de siècle period registers especially women’s greater mobility in public consuming spaces. Along the central streets of the West End, with its mushrooming of shops, department stores, theaters, cafés, female clubs, and cinemas around the turn of the century, women increasingly manifest their visibility as purchasers, pleasure-seekers, and window-shoppers on the public street and the hetero-social urban space. Established during the same time, situated in the same neighborhood, and courting the same consuming public, these institutions address middle-class women as target customers and, through inviting them to purchase goods and services, contribute to the disruption of the long-held Victorian separate spheres and to the increased female public visibility at the turn of the century. This paper would thus examine female consumption as manifesting fin de siècle women’s complicated involvement in the city’s consuming spaces and commodity culture, which is represented by Dorothy Richardson in her fictional narratives about female consumers emerging in fin de siècle London, a phenomenon historically experienced by women of the 1880s and 1890s who increasingly found London’s West End a site of consumption and female pleasure.