美國小說中的女性友誼政治，1880-1980

Abstract

本論文探討了四部美國小說中的女性友誼政治：亨利・詹姆斯的《波士頓人》(1886)、妮拉・拉森的《偽裝》(1929)、珍・鮑爾斯的《兩位嚴肅的女人》(1943) 和童妮・摩里森的《蘇拉》(1973)。在論文裡，我討論女性友誼裡的親密和紛爭，但特別強調後者，並提出女性朋友之間的衝突和不睦與他們之間的親密和相互支持一樣具有政治重要性。論文分為四章，每一章各討論其中一部小說。在每一章裡，我引用德希達關於友誼、敵意與政治的分析來討論不和睦的女性友誼如何讓我們對小說的歷史背景裡的政治話語和社會事件有更豐富的理解。 第一章探討亨利・詹姆斯的《波士頓人》中的女性友誼與民主的關係。一方面，小說中不同階級的女性所形成的友誼體現了包容性的民主平等精神，這樣的友誼也是十九世紀女權運動對平等期望的縮影。另一方面，當這種友誼裡出現問題時，這些問題不僅代表朋友之間的個人情感不睦，還透露了女權運動所面臨的挑戰。這些問題包含不同階級女性對彼此的不了解而產生的隔閡、矛盾、溝通障礙等。透過檢視《波士頓人》中的不睦女性友誼，我們可以觀察到民主化過程中會面臨到的問題與挑戰。 第二章分析妮拉・拉森的《偽裝》中的女性友誼、種族提升政治和種族偽裝之間的關係。我認為妮拉・拉森小說中的女性友誼顯示了二十世紀初期種族提升政治的局限，並展望一個更具包容性的黑人社群。在小說中，拉森描述兩位背景十分不同的黑人女性朋友，一位認同種族提升政治的價值觀，另一位則否。我認為拉森之所以要描述他們成為朋友，是為了證明了儘管黑人女性有南遠北徹的個性和想法，他們仍可能因為類似的邊緣處境，而產生友誼連結。但拉森也同時強調他們之間的不睦和緊張關係，以顯示種族提升政治的問題，尤其是對黑人女性強加的性別和階級規範。 第三章則聚焦在珍・鮑爾斯的《兩位嚴肅的女人》中的女性友誼和小羅斯福的睦鄰政策的關係。我提出珍・鮑爾斯小說中的女性友誼批判了富蘭克林・羅斯福在1930和1940年代的睦鄰政策中試圖創造出的國內外和諧景象。在小說中，鄰居關係（不管是美國國內的鄰居關係或是美國和拉丁美洲國家間的跨國鄰居關係）常常表現出一種和睦關係，並呈現出鄰居彼此的相似性。相比之下，女性友誼經常以差異和衝突的方式呈現。透過比較這兩種關係，我們可以觀察到女性友誼中的衝突如何暴露睦鄰政策的表面和諧，並顯示出美國國人之間和美國及拉丁美洲國家之間（尤其是巴拿馬），不平等的權力結構。 第四章討論童妮・摩里森的《蘇拉》中的女性友誼、黑人女性家長和莫伊尼翰報告的關係。我將摩里森的《蘇拉》視為對1965年莫伊尼翰報告的回應，該報告將黑人貧困歸因於女性主導的黑人家庭。我認為這部小說所描繪的兩個女性主導的黑人家庭和不和睦的女性友誼，正可以拿來批評莫伊尼翰報告對黑人女性家長和黑人女性過度簡化的理解。除了莫伊尼翰報告本身，摩里森的《蘇拉》也對此報告當時的評論者有一些挑戰及回應。 總的來說，這四章探討了不睦的女性友誼如何豐富我們對政治的理解。具體而言，它們論述了女性之間的衝突如何呈現女性之間的差異、並鬆動政治社群的穩定（此政治社群可以是女權團體、黑人社群等等），這種鬆動可以進一步驅策社群必須擴大，並接納不同的個體。

This dissertation explores the politics of female friendship in four American novels: Henry James’s The Bostonians (1886), Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929), Jane Bowles’s Two Serious Ladies (1943), and Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973). While discussing both affection and conflicts between female friends, I place particular emphasis on the latter and suggest that conflicts and dissonance between female friends hold as much political significance as friends’ affection and mutual support. The dissertation is divided into four chapters, each dedicated to one of the four novels. In each chapter, I employ Jacques Derrida’s theory of friendship, which analyzes the intricate relationship between friendship, enmity, and politics, to discuss how the portrayal of uneasy female friendship complicates our understanding of political discourse or social events in the novels’ respective historical settings. In Chapter 1, “Female Friendship and New Democracy in Henry James’s The Bostonians, I argue that, on the one hand, the female friendship formed between women of different classes in the novel embodies the democratic spirit of inclusivity and signifies the aspirations of the nineteenth-century feminist movement for equal rights. On the other hand, the tension that emerges in this friendship reveals not only friction between friends but also challenges faced by the feminist group. Through examining the uneasy friendship in The Bostonians, we can observe the challenges in the process of inclusion. In Chapter 2, “Female Friendship, Uplift Politics, and Passing in Nella Larsen’s Passing,” I suggest that female friendship in Nella Larsen’s novel serves to show the limitations of early twentieth-century uplift politics and envision a more inclusive black community that embraces diverse individuals. In the novel, Larsen uses the friendship between two markedly different black women to signify their shared experiences in a racist and sexist society despite their different values regarding issues of domesticity, class, gender, and sexuality. Larsen, however, also stresses the dissonance between friends to demonstrate how uplift politics imposes a single set of rules on black women and exclude those who do not conform to the norms of respectability. In Chapter 3, “Female Friendship and the Good Neighbor in Jane Bowles’s Two Serious Ladies,” I posit that the portrayal of female friendship in Jane Bowles’s novel challenges the homogenizing and harmonizing forces of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy during the 1930s and 1940s. Throughout the novel, female friendships are often depicted in terms of differences and conflicts, while neighbor relationships are associated with harmony and uniformity. By juxtaposing these two types of relationships, we can observe how the strained female friendships expose the seemingly harmonious neighbor relationships promoted by the Good Neighbor policy on both national and international levels. In Chapter 4, “Female Friendship and Matriarchy: Toni Morrison’s Sula and the Moynihan Report,” I read Morrison’s Sula as a response to the 1965 Moynihan report and its various interpretations.The Moynihan report attributes black poverty to female-headed black families. I suggest that the novel portrays two female-headed black households and a difficult female friendship to criticize and complicate the claims made by the report as well as the criticism of the repot regarding matriarchy and black women’s conditions. Overall, these four chapters explore how dissonance between women friends can complicate our understanding of politics. Specifically, they show how conflicts between women can reveal differences and disparities between women and disrupt the stability of a political collective, such as a feminist group or a black community. This disruption, in turn, compels the political collective to expand itself and include heterogeneous individuals.