是誰之過歟－魏清德犯罪小說研究

Abstract

誠如本文題目所示，本論文的研究重心在於以魏清德犯罪小說為對象，去探討因何犯罪產生？而這連帶可以思考魏氏犯罪小說的創作生成與意義。以往關於日治時期犯罪小說的研究，往往多以「類型論」為切入點，故多重視文本書寫問題，遑論進一步剖析日治時期的社會現實因素如何影響小說的內容？ 有鑒於此，本論文便聚焦於魏清德犯罪小說，討論日治時期的殖民政策、偵查制度等現實因素如何影響其犯罪小說的書寫內容，並從當時主要的犯罪學思想切入，同時進一步關注這些思想如何實踐於日治時期的犯罪防治政策與司法制度，接著又分析《臺灣日日新報》系的犯罪報導，理解當時的媒體如何呈現「犯罪」，大眾又如何理解犯罪。到了第三章，則是討論犯罪小說出現的「空間」性質，考察哪些空間容易產生犯罪，而可能的原因為何？小說中哪些空間不存在於臺灣，卻在小說中出現的理由又是甚麼？政府為了穩定秩序而監視人民，犯罪成為抵抗監視的手段之一，在「可見」與「不可見」的空間中角力，成為小說偵探與罪犯鬥智的過程。第四章總結魏清德犯罪小說諸多攸關於秩序的面向，甚麼因素可以擾動秩序，小說出現的秩序觀與作者本身的秩序觀如何產生關聯？ 最後，在結論中指出魏清德犯罪小說的書寫特色，身為當時頂尖的犯罪小說創作者，魏清德十分熟練犯罪小說的寫作模式，其表現與同時代歐美、日本犯罪小說質疑政府的方式不盡相同，顯示與殖民政府權力之間同時有著對話、共構的複雜性，這可能是殖民地體制限制緣故，但也恰恰能獲見日治臺灣犯罪小說的特殊風貌。

This thesis, “Who Made It──The Study of Wei Ching-Dei’s Crime Fiction,” investigate the political and social factors that enables the emergence of theses crime fictions. Most previous studies of Taiwan crime fiction during Japanese colonial period focused on studying the genre crime fiction and influences from previous literary works. However, they have not studied whether the cultural logic in these novels would ever been affected by the juridical or political context of the time. This thesis, therefore, aims to study Wei Ching-de’s crime fiction by connecting them to governmental policy, investigation proceedings and crime news at the time. First, it discusses the relationship of criminals and their crime via the criminological studies of the time, and then investigate how these criminological understandings shaped the practice of crime prevention and criminal rectification. It also presenting how news reports on crimes on Taiwan Daily News and how they are understood by readers. In the next section it investigates the spaces and places in which the crimes (in real life and in fiction) happen the most often. If a certain space had not yet existed in Taiwan, why did Wei Ching-de set it in his crime fiction? When committing crimes becomes a tactic to resist governmental surveillance, the threshold of in/visibility then becomes the major tension generated in the crime fictions. The forth chapter reads the concept of order in Wei Ching-de’s crime fiction: how the order is disrupted and then restored, and how does it relates to Wei’s concept of order in general? Finally, this thesis attempts to conclude that Wei Ching-de’s crime fictions contributes not only to the history of crime fiction in Taiwan—but by means of incorporating Taiwan-specific criminological epistemology, he created a much more localized (Taiwanese) crime fictions than readers have been recognizing.