揭開抵抗的面紗：瑪格麗特·愛特伍德《使女的故事》中作為建構自我的懺悔

Abstract

瑪格麗特·阿特伍德（Margaret Atwood）的《使女的故事》（1985）是反烏托邦文類的經典之作，故事背景設定在一個名為基列（Gilead）、自我管控且極權的社會。在本論文中，我主張敘述者奧芙雷德（Offred）將「懺悔」作為一種手段，用以抵抗被物化的壓力與身份的逐漸喪失，同時也藉此重建她的自我認同及與他人的關係。她的記憶並非創傷經歷的固定儲存庫，而是如米歇爾·巴拉耶夫（Michelle Balaev）所描述的「一個流動的重建過程」——在此過程中，她的過去與現在透過懺悔的瞬間不斷地被「創造與再創造」，從而建構出她自身的抵抗。本論文循著從創傷、經由懺悔機制，直至療癒與社群修復可能性的三段式發展軌跡，援引巴拉耶夫的多元創傷模型、米歇爾·福柯（Michel Foucault）關於懺悔作為「話語儀式」與「權力技術」的理論， 奧古斯丁（Augustine of Hippo）所著的《懺悔錄》，以及茱蒂絲·赫曼（Judith Herman）的復原模型，以闡明奧芙雷德如何將基列的強制性儀式轉化為其對立面：抵抗。本分析結束在「歷史註記」這篇後記中，其中皮埃肖托教授的學術詮釋代表了見證的失敗，顯示即使是最明確的抵抗行為，也容易被當權者曲解並重新挪用。然而，錄音帶的存在證明了「懺悔」作為歷史見證的持久力量，而奧芙雷德的敘事最終代表了一種嶄新的懺悔文學形式，將個人創傷的處理與抵抗及自我建構融為一體。

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) is a masterwork of the dystopian genre, set in a self-controlled and totalitarian society called Gilead. In this thesis, I argue that the narrator Offred uses confession as a means of resisting the pressures to be objectified and the gradual loss of her identity, as well as a way to rebuild her self-identity and relationships with others. Her memory, rather than being a fixed storehouse of traumatic experiences, functions as what Michelle Balaev describes as “a fluid process of reconstruction,” in which her past and present are continuously “created and recreated” through the moment of confession, thereby constructing her own resistance. Tracing a three-part arc, from trauma through the confession mechanism to the possibility of healing and communal repair, the thesis draws on Balaev’s pluralistic trauma model, Michel Foucault’s theory of confession as “ritual of discourse” and “technology of power,” Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions, and Judith Herman’s recovery model to show how Gilead’s coercive rituals are appropriated by Offred into their opposite: resistance. This analysis culminates in the “Historical Notes” epilogue, where Professor Pieixoto’s academic reception represents a failure of witnessing, showing how even the most clearly resistant acts are prone to being misheard and reappropriated by dominant authority. Yet the existence of the tapes testifies to the enduring power of confession as a historical witness, and Offred’s narrative ultimately represents a new form of confessional literature that combines personal trauma processing with resistance and self-construction.