克莉絲娜 瑞德與瑪莉 瓊斯劇作中之北愛女性與族群議題

Abstract

本論文聚焦於兩位北愛爾蘭女性劇作家：克莉絲娜•瑞德與瑪莉•瓊斯的作品。《瓷杯中的茶》和 《貝爾法斯特的美人》為瑞德從性、婚姻、職涯、宗教、政治面向探討女性自主性的作品。瑪麗瓊絲的《你現在正在說》呈現北愛女性生命的多樣性以及她們如何或強烈或溫和地展現她們之間的差異性。《陽台某處》則是瓊絲以女性觀點，戲謔又諷世地再現北愛麻煩﹝The Troubles﹞。 研究這四部戲劇的其一目的為檢視北愛爾蘭女性如何在一個政治、宗教上都分裂的國度裡對抗父權體系。四部戲劇皆以北愛爾蘭分離主義社會為背景，而此父權掌控的分離主義社會使得北愛女性成為了史匹娃克指出的沉默的弱勢者﹝The silent subaltern﹞。瑞德和瓊絲透過她們的劇本，根據女人們的性格、宗教、政治立場，呈現她們之間的差異性。本論文透過閱讀分析兩位女劇作家的作品，試圖提供觀眾了解北愛爾蘭女性生命經驗的多重途徑。 本論文的第二個目的是透過詳細研讀瑞德和瓊絲的劇本，了解北愛社會如何在政治動盪之下轉型。女性劇作家的作品傳達出一件事情，那就是北愛社會除了政治和宗教的分裂的問題之外，其他社會問題像是貧窮、失業、不當居住環境、家庭暴力、性別歧視，以及監禁等常常被忽略。因此，本論文透過提出對於瑞德和瓊絲作品中女性經驗多樣性的批判性思考，期許能替北愛社會的各項問題找到「陰性的解決之道」。

This thesis focuses on the works of Northern Irish women playwrights – Christina Reid and Marie Jones. Two of their plays are selected respectively. Tea in a China Cup (1983) and The Belle of the Belfast City (1987) are Reid’s interrogation of women’s autonomy in terms of sexuality, marriage, career, religion and political stance. Marie Jones’s 1985 work Now You’re Talkin’ exhibits the multiplicity of Northern Irish women’s lives and how they either vociferously or modestly demonstrate their differences. Somewhere Over the Balcony (1987) is Jones’s farcical yet somehow cynical representation of Northern Irish Troubles from female perspectives. The first purpose of studying these plays is to examine how these women attempt to counteract male aspirations in a politically and religiously divided society. The selected plays for this thesis are set within the Troubles context of Northern Ireland in which the male-presided sectarianism renders Northern Irish women the silent subaltern. In Reid’s and Jones’s plays, a multitude of women are illustrated with regards to their various personalities, religions, political stances, and life experiences. The examination of their plays offers the audience alternative ways to understand Northern Irish women’s experiences other than those of being mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives in a highly patriarchal and militant society. The second purpose of this study is to demonstrate how Northern Irish society transforms through political upheavals by studying Reid’s and Jones’s plays in detail. Works by women playwrights reveal that, besides the political and religious divisions that have received almost the entire spotlight of the media since the 1960s (the time when the Troubles began), other social problems such as poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing, domestic abuse, sexuality, and incarceration are largely ignored. Therefore, this study aims to provide a critical analysis of Reid’s and Jones’s works, in which the diverse experiences of Northern Irish women are presented, in the hope of coming to “feminine solution(s)” to the social problems, religious sectarianism as well as other issues concerning women’s (and men’s) lives in Northern Ireland. This thesis examines how gender, particularly female, is presented in the plays by two Northern Irish female playwrights. One of the aims is, through the reading of Reid’s and Jones’s dramas, to study how women conspire yet often attempt to resist the patriarchal and sectarian culture of Northern Ireland. The second aim is to reveal, within the male-dominated, sectarian cultural context, how these two female playwrights theatrically construct the autonomy of women through their stories so as to subvert the convention in which most women are forced to locate themselves in the periphery of Northern Irish politics.