治療醜陋? 從 Frances Cha 的《If I Had Your Face》探討女性失能及整容文化

Abstract

本論文意欲由 Frances Cha 的小說《 If I Had Your Face (如果我能擁有你的臉) 》探討女性失能的論述。經由普爾 （Jasbir Puar）所提出的「失能（debility）」概念， 我認為 Cha 小說中的女性人物各個均受生理甚至環境影響而被迫接受失能的狀態。這種狀態不僅迫使個體在社會中無法順利取得所需的資源，甚至必須持續的優化自己以追求能供給社會的最高產能。由此推論，讀者便可以試圖以失能的角度閱讀小說中南韓文化對於「醜陋」的態度。以至於在探討醜陋、身心障礙、懷孕及貧窮等由社會建構的生理、心理及狀態性失能在南韓社會中如何以「治癒」的需求體現。以整容文化為例，雖然南韓社會對整容的文化接受度很廣，但若重探整容過程所賦予醫療行為改變女性生理外貌所代表的意義，便可推論相貌「醜陋」在某一種程度上如同「失能」必須被治癒的概念。除了探討各種先天及後天的生理失能和由環境導致的狀態失能，本論文希望能延伸探討整容手術後的女性透過「裝飾（ornamental）」的行為探索不同面向的女性情慾。第一章聚焦於如何從書中的女性人物閱讀失能的各種面貌，並深入討論各個角色選擇追尋、接受、或者抗拒至於的過程。第二章延續對整容文化的探討，並透過鄭安玲 (Anne Anlin Cheng) 所提出的「裝飾論」，重新探討術後對象所代表的邊緣性 ( peripherality) 及整容時與人工填充物「合成」 後的合成性 ( synthetic nature)。 除此之外，我認為由裝飾論閱讀女性主題之間對於亞裔身分所代表的亞裔女性化（Asian Femininity）論述，能協助讀者更深入的理解女性之間的情感及情慾。由裝飾論所延伸的女性探討或許能為南韓與女性失能之間的關係，尋找失能與被迫治癒之間其他存在之可能性。

This thesis aims to engage in the discourse over the representation of feminist disability in Frances Cha’s novel If I Had Your Face. Drawing on Jasbir Puar’s notion of the “debilitated,” it suggests that Cha’s novel engages in an array of “debilitating” conditions that not only inhibits the individual from obtaining access to additional resources, but also conditions the individual to pursuit a process of “bettering” to achieve optimal productivity. This leads the reader to take a closer look at how “ugliness” is viewed as a debilitating state that demands to be cured, alongside other conditions such as muteness, pregnancy, and poverty. To take cosmetic surgery as an example, while the practice remains widely accepted in South Korea, a closer examination of how medical intervention of the female body sheds light on how ugliness is perceived as a form of disability that demands to be cured. In addition to recognizing various forms of physical disability and conditional debility, this thesis explores how post-surgical female subjects who seek cure explore various aspects of female desire through ornamental gestures. The first chapter of this thesis focuses on how disability and debility are interpreted through the women in Cha’s novel, and the reason behind these women’s choice to either pursuit or reject cure. The second chapter extends the discussion of cosmetic surgery by adapting Anne Anlin Cheng’s notion of “ornamentalism” to interpret the post-surgical subjects through both the peripherality and synthetic nature they embody. Furthermore, I suggest that the ormanentalist nature of these women play into the tendency for them to marvel, gaze, and yearn for specific forms of aesthetic and feminine appearances, along with particular bonds and emotions that are exclusive to female relationships. Thus, the novel offers an alternative way of addressing the impact of cosmetic surgery in contemporary South Korean culture.