卡森．麥卡勒斯《婚禮中的成員》與《心是孤獨的獵手》中的種族與性別他者

Abstract

本篇論文探討麥卡勒斯小說《婚禮中的成員》與《心是孤獨的獵手》中對於常態的霸權的描述及抵抗的可能性。過往，批評家往往認為麥卡勒斯小說中唯一重要的主題即人類普世性的孤獨與疏離，這樣的看法已然成為麥卡勒斯小說研究中普遍的共識，直到性別研究與酷兒批評家開始關注麥卡勒斯小說中對於他者的描述。麥卡勒斯小說中對於他者的描繪往往也是對於身體細節的描繪，因此本篇論文認為如欲了解麥卡勒斯小說對於常態霸權的呈現，檢視其小說文本與身體論述的關係是不可或缺的。本篇論文共分為兩個章節。在第一個章節中，我提出《婚禮中的成員》一書中，常態的霸權即展現於對於身體差異的焦慮，然而小說中所描繪種族與性別他者展現出的愛欲與親密，仍蘊含改變的可能性。在第二個章節中，我檢視《心是孤獨的獵手》一書對性別與種族他者的再現，進化論述將性別與種族他者視為原始，小說中對女性的描繪抵抗了進化論述中對女性身體的貶抑，但小說對於種族他者的再現仍未脫離進化論述的限制。

In this thesis, I study the hegemony of normativity and the resistance to it in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Previously, critics have assumed loneliness and alienation as the only significant concerns in McCullers’s novels, ignoring McCullers’s depiction of the racial and sexual others. This kind of belief dominates the studies of McCullers’s novels, until recently critics of feminist and queer studies shed new light on McCullers’s depiction of the Others in her novels. In this thesis, with an aim to expand these new studies, I examine how McCullers engages with discourses of physical differences, such as eugenics and evolutionary thoughts, which are crucial to the stigmatization of the racial and sexual others. In the first chapter, I study how the hegemony of normativity is demonstrated in the anxieties of physical differences in The Member of the Wedding. Other than that, I argue that in The Member of the Wedding, McCullers suggests transformative potential in the sexual and racial others’ expression of love and desire. In the second chapter, I study McCullers’s ambivalent relationship with evolutionary thoughts in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I argue that while McCullers’s depiction of female sexuality counters the expectations of evolutionary thoughts, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter still shows influence of evolutionary thoughts in the representations of African Americans. In conclusion, I point out that because of the restrictive representations of African Americans, The Heart is a Lonely Hunters lacks the possibility of transformation.