From Transgression to Transcendence Helen Garner’s Feminist Writing

【作者】 朱晓映；

【导师】 黄源深；

【作者基本信息】 华东师范大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2008， 博士

【摘要】 在当代澳大利亚众多女作家中,海伦·加纳的名字也许不是最为显赫的,但却是非常令人难忘的,因为她的作品,也因为她的人生。从1977年出版第一部小说《毒瘾难戒》至今,三十年来,加纳作为女性主义作家的声名在读者和评论者接受和拒绝、理解和质疑的交替中建立、巩固并提升,成为一个在澳大利亚女性主义文化和文学领域兼有盛名的女性主义偶像。她是当代澳大利亚文学史上获得“澳大利亚国家图书奖”的第一位女作家,她是第一个成功实践“女性书写”、确立澳大利亚女性写作转折的小说家,她也是澳大利亚女性主义史上第一个质疑女性主义成果、促使女性主义反思的女性主义者——“一个有意义的特殊时刻”的始作俑者。她的名字几乎成为当代澳大利亚女性主义写作的代名词。作为一个起步较晚、并不多产、有争议、在边缘、甚至有些离经叛道的另类女作家,海伦·加纳在澳大利亚文坛突起之后便始终吸引着读者和评论家的眼球,历经三十年而不衰,是一个值得研究的现象:一个以女性为主要书写对象、以女性生活经验为主要书写内容、以个人叙事为主要书写形式的女作家,如果以男权的文学标准去衡量,她聚焦于家庭生活的内容和自传的形式决定了她的狭小视野,也注定了她的作品是没有多少艺术价值的,但是,海伦·加纳却以她在公众中的知名度和持久影响颠覆了这种男权的审美标准,证明了女性写作的力量。和与她同时代的另一些女作家不同的是,海伦·加纳从来不隐藏自己的女性主义者身份,并坦然承认,如果没有女性主义的启迪,她很可能成不了作家,这为我们运用女性主义文学批评理论去解读她以及她的作品提供了足够的理由。伴随着女性主义浪潮的起伏和推进,海伦·加纳在她的写作中展示了她人生不同阶段的女性主义立场和姿态:她从激进而自由的女性主义追求起步,从小说书写谋求女性身体的突围开始,在女性主义第二浪潮和第三浪潮交汇力量的冲击下,转向对女性内心精神世界的探索,随后又从小说的虚拟世界走向现实生活,在非小说的写作中反思女性主义的过去、现在和未来,质疑女性主义的受害者身份,表明自己后女性主义的、渴望两性之间停止战争、和谐相处的、理想的超然姿态。加纳迅速转换的女性主义身份与视角引领了澳大利亚各种关涉女性主义的争议和辩论,成为澳大利亚女性主义写作发展的推动力,使海伦·加纳成为澳大利亚文坛一个个性鲜明的女性主义先锋。论文除“引言”和“结语”外,主体部分包括三章。引言部分主要回顾了自加纳的第一部小说《毒瘾难戒》出版以来,澳大利亚文学评论界对她的女性主义作家身份以及她作品中的女性主义主题和叙事形式的争议和评价。总的说来,加纳三十年的创作生活可以分为前后两个阶段,以1992年为分水岭:前十五年她主要写小说,后十五年她转向非小说写作。三十年里,关于加纳和她的作品的讨论出现过三次高潮:第一次是在她的第一部小说《毒瘾难戒》出版之后,作品中性与毒品的主题引起了人们对“女性写作”的关注,成就了她的作家名声;第二次是在她的第一部非小说《第一块石头》出版前后,作品中加纳对男性的同情和对年轻一代女性主义者的谴责引发了关于性和权力关系的讨论,使她成为一个公众人物;第三次则是在她的最近一部非小说《乔·琴科的安慰》出版之后,她对法律与道德之间的矛盾的揭示引起了更多人对法律公正性的质疑。对《毒瘾难戒》的评论中虽然有多种声音,褒贬不一,但是对加纳女性主义作家身份的认同还是胜过了其它的批评之声,并成为评价她后来作品的标准之一。在《孩子们的巴赫》几乎赢得一致的赞扬之后,加纳的女性主义作家身份得到了进一步的确立。但是,加纳并没有借《孩子们的巴赫》成功的东风一鼓作气地去建立自己在小说界更为响亮的声名,相反,她几乎停止了写作,在整整八年之后才出版了她的另一部小说《小天地中的大世界》,实现了她从现实世界到精神世界、从现实主义到超现实主义的转变。完成了《小天地中的大世界》之后,十五年小说创作的孤独感使得加纳渴望走出“自己的房间”去接触和了解现实生活。于是,在1995年她出版了第一部非小说《第一块石头》。她对女性主义受害者身份的质疑和对男性的同情以及她在虚构与非虚构之间书写的叙事形式使他遭遇了来自于女性主义内部的误解、质疑甚至攻击,被推向了女性主义的对立面,冠以“女性主义叛徒”的恶名。加纳被这种误读所深深伤害。但是,她没有后悔,而是一如既往地写作。她随后出版了非小说《真实故事》和《钢铁的感觉》,以她的坦诚和直率说服了读者和评论界,赢得更多的理解和支持。2004年,当她的最新的一部非小说《乔·琴科的安慰》与读者见面时,虽然它是与《第一块石头》类似是一个同情男性受害者的文本,却没有像《第一块石头》那样引起那么大的骚动,而是激发了更多读者对两性关系以及道德与法律关系的反思。第一章以“在不断变化的女性主义背景下写作”为题,探讨了女性主义发展对海伦·加纳写作的影响以及海伦·加纳的女性主义写作在澳大利亚女性主义文学史上的地位。女性主义是一个复杂、模糊的概念,一个难以界定的术语。它有别于各种“主义”,它不是由几条定义和一系列连贯的概念组成的一种固定不变的学说,更不是排斥异己、追求占据思想领域中霸权地位的“真理”,而是一个开放的、动态的、涵盖面极广的,各种思想交锋、交融的场所。女性主义的发展是一种波浪式的推进,从第一浪潮对男女平等的追求,到第二浪潮对男女差异的承认,到第三浪潮对女性个体的尊重,女性主义从单一的政治、经济平等追求转向将女性私人领域完全政治化的追求,再转向对个人选择的尊重,褪去了早期女性主义敌视男性的表情,用宽容之心和以柔克刚的独特的女性化表达方式,将女性主义的信仰和行动在不经意间渗透到人们现代生活的各个方面,使得这个原本让人有些惧怕的“主义”产生了非凡的亲和力,实现了后现代对女性主义的拯救。在女性主义浪潮中,女性主义文学批评逐渐成长,女性写作渐入主流。从伍尔夫到波伏娃,从莫尔到夏沃尔特,从伊瑞格芮到西苏、再到克里斯蒂娃,从米利特到帕格利亚,女性主义作家、评论家层出不穷,她们都意识到话语对人的主体的控制力量,认识到话语是男权实现他们对女性压迫的主要途径,主张建构一套女性话语,“写你自己,让你的身体被听见”,或是“用白色的墨汁”写作,用“女人声音”说话,在话语中重建女性的主体意识,颠覆男性的话语霸权。在所有这些女性主义运动的影响和女性主义文学观念的启迪下,海伦·加纳拿起笔来,写她自己的故事,实现了对她自己的拯救。随着她作家身份的确立和女性主义观念的内化,她后来的小说和非小说中更是充满了令女性主义读者振作的素材,给女性主义读者留下了充分的解构和重建的空间。第二章“寻求越界的途径——海伦·加纳的小说创作”分析和解读了加纳的三部小说:《毒瘾难戒》、《孩子们的巴赫》和《小天地中的大世界》,建构了加纳从身体到精神,从自由性爱到和谐家庭,从现实主义到超现实主义,从自由主义女性主义者到后现代女性主义者的越界探求。《毒瘾难戒》被称之为“性爱的现实主义文本”,以毒品为隐喻,女主人公对性和爱的依赖像吸毒成瘾一样难以戒除,在反反复复的挣扎中终于实现突围,找到自我。《毒瘾难戒》的出版宣告澳大利亚一种新型的女性主义小说的到来,定位了加纳的女性主义作家身份。自由女性主义者认为,解放身体是解放精神的前提,释放力比多是女性赋权的一种方式,这也正是《毒瘾难戒》的颠覆力量所在。但是,加纳本人认为,她在写作《毒瘾难戒》时并没有明确的作家意识,是一种即兴的创作。而她的作家身份只是在写作《孩子们的巴赫》时才真正建立起来,最终也使得这部作品成为加纳最好的一部小说,被称为“现代爱情道德寓言”。在《孩子们的巴赫》中,加纳借用音乐里的复调技巧,多声部地呈现作品中每个人物的声音,展现每个人内心深处的精神追求。作品因为女主人公雅典娜最后的回归家庭有了一种道德教化的意义。在《小天地中的大世界》中,加纳的写作融入了更多后现代元素。书中三篇独立的故事通过重复出现的人物衔接为整体,运用超现实主义的手法,展现女性从小天地走向大世界的努力与挣扎。加纳的小说创作表现了她女性主义的越界探索一一身体的越界以及精神的越界。第三章“展现超然的姿态——海伦·加纳的非小说创作”对加纳90年代之后的非小说作品的主题和形式进行探讨。在完成了《小天地中的大世界》之后的十五年里,加纳转向了非小说写作,先后出版了《第一块石头》、《真实故事》、《钢铁的感觉》和《乔·琴科的安慰》。90年代以后女性主义第三浪潮涌起,她们吸收了后现代主义的有益营养,否定和批判传统的女性主义理论,放弃对女性解放的具体目标的追求,努力去解构社会意识、思维习惯、人的主体性及男权思想对女性主义的影响,关注差异,强调多元,反对权威性,致力于建构一套女性的话语。在以沃尔夫和帕格利亚为主要代表的第三浪潮女性主义者的倡导下,年轻一代女性主义者摒弃女性主义受害者的身份,在差异中利用身体赋权,重建男女之间性与权力的关系。但是,加纳认为,年轻一代女性主义在解放女性力比多、自我赋权的过程中已经偏离了原来设定的理想轨迹,成为男女之间的性别战争的推手。在她看来,女性主义的最终目标应该是男女两性的包容以及和谐相处。加纳的这种超越传统的女性主义态度首先反映在她的第一部非小说《第一块石头》中,引发了一场媒体大战。在《第一块石头》中,加纳采取了在“虚构与非虚构之间”书写的方式,刻意模糊了事实与虚构的界限,表达了她对女性主义的反思与挑战,成为她对当代澳大利亚女性主义写作的贡献。在《第一块石头》之后,加纳出版了《真实故事》和《钢铁的感觉》两本非小说文集,书中叙述了加纳对人生和写作的经验和感悟,为读者更好地理解她的作品提供了丰富的素材。在《乔·琴科的安慰》中,加纳继续以文学性非小说的形式再现了女性主义的代际矛盾,在对两种女人——怜子圣母和祸水红颜——的书写中,加纳的后女性主义观点得以进一步呈现:当女性主义将女人变成了“祸水红颜”之时应该是女性主义考虑重建女性主体意识的时候了。在加纳的非小说中,我们看到一个后女性主义的身影——一个反思女性主义追求、致力于重建男女权力关系的女性主义者。论文最后的结语部分中总结了海伦·加纳的人生和创作的几个特点。首先,海伦·加纳毫无疑问是一个女性主义者。女性主义启蒙促进了她女性意识的觉醒,使她投身于女性书写,成为女性主义作家,在从男权的压抑下突围的过程中,她以一个女性主义者的身份反观女性主义的发展,提出了对女性主义的反思和挑战。她作为一个女性主义者的成长是从一个自由激进的女性主义者的越界企求向后女性主义超然姿态转变的过程,从谋求女性的独立、自由和平等到建构和谐两性关系的过程。第二,海伦·加纳是一个女性主义作家。在三十年的创作中,无论她写小说还是非小说,她始终以女性为写作对象,从女性视角关注女性生活,并将自己融入故事之中,使个人的、私人的生活成为政治的话语,构成了对男权的颠覆。她作为一个女性主义作家的独特之处在于她是一个伴随着女性主义浪潮往前推进而不断走向成熟的女性主义作家,在变化中保持着自己不变的追求和个性。第三,在海伦·加纳的身上实现了女性主义者身份、作家身份和女人身份的融合而不是对立,使她成为一个富有女性魅力的女人,一个敢于越界又勇于反思的女性主义者,一个为女人、写女人、致力于建构男女两性和谐的女性主义作家。更多还原

【Abstract】 Helen Garner(1942-),one of Australia’s most popular and contentious contemporary women writers,is a prominent figure in Australian women’s fiction and an icon of Australian literary feminism.Her reputation was established in 1977 by her first book,Monkey Grip(1977),an undisguised feminist novel with mixed reviews, and consolidated in 1984 by her third book,The Children’s Bach(1984),which won almost universal approval.But in 1995,with the publication of her first nonfiction book The First Stone:Some questions about sex and power(1995),her feminist identity was interrogated by some of her feminist allies.As the first woman writer to have been awarded Australian National Book Council Award,Garner marks a turning point in Australian women’s writing.She is also the first in contemporary Australian feminism to challenge the gains of feminism and illuminate the fault-lines in feminist theory.A public figure and a famous writer,Garner has acquired a name for her work, but that name is also a contested site of meaning and an unstable signifier.Thirty years ago,Garner started her writing life with the inspiration of feminist ideology,which,since then,has permeated her work.Unlike other contemporaneous women writers,Garner never disguised her feminist identity.Instead she declared publicly that "If I had not been a feminist,I quite probably would not have become a writer." This statement has provided the basis for a feminist interpretation of her work. Following waves of feminist thought,Garner started writing fiction in search of physical liberation from patriarchal repression,then turned to soul-searching in women as a means of subverting duality,and finally reached a state of transcendence as a post-feminist writer,especially of nonfiction,hoping for the peaceful coexistence of men and women.During the past thirty years,she has been writing about women in their domestic lives,which,by patriarchal literary standards,might be considered meaningless and artless.But Garner has sustained popularity with her "small scope" and her feminist insights.She has become a unique feminist in Australian feminist history.The objectives of this dissertation are threefold:to examine Garner’s reputation and reception in their cultural and historical contexts;to explore the subject matters and narrative modes of Garner’s writing by using feminist literary theories; and to assess how Garner’s writing and life interact with each other and fluctuate with the development of feminism.This dissertation includes three main chapters apart from the introductory and the concluding paragraphs.The introduction chronologically reviews criticism relating to Helen Garner to show how Garner has been usually accepted but sometimes rejected as a feminist icon in the Australian literary circle,and to justify the necessity,the possibility and the significance of a feminist-oriented study of Garner in a Chinese context.Since 1977 and throughout the 1980s and early 1990s,Garner’s authorial identity as a feminist writer had been questioned repeatedly.Historically,her reputation has revolved around the ongoing debate about sex and gender and her right to be called an author. Her thirty years of writing fall into two phases,with the year 1995 being the watershed that separates her fiction from her nonfiction writing.In all her work of both fiction and nonfiction,she explores women’s desire and the gendered power structures within which female sexuality is experienced and sexual transgressions are committed.She focuses predominantly on forms of family relationships and the complex negotiations women undertake between their own needs and the demands made on them,for love and sex,motherhood and independence.Writing in different periods,she has been the focus of several media uproars.The first of these unfolded in the mid 1980s,following the publication of Monkey Grip,a novel that signalled the arrival of a new era in Australian women’s writing.The second erupted in the 1990s when The First Stone,questioning male-female relationships in the context of second wave feminism,caused a huge media frenzy.The third time that Garner became a hot item for the media was when her most recent nonfiction work,Joe Cinque’s Consolation(2004),initiated an argument over ethics and law.Chapter One focuses on the cultural and historical context in which Garner’s identity as a feminist writer has been established.Feminism,a term full of ambiguity and loaded meanings,is difficult to define and its connotations have been changing in pace with the successive waves of feminism.While first wave feminists strived for equality in politics and economics,second wave feminists shifted to the self-empowerment of women by including the personal in politics.The third wave, questioning such basic premises as the gender role and identity dualism embraced by the first and the second waves,has yielded concepts like difference,particularity, embodiment,multiplicity,contradictions and identity.In step with the ongoing feminist movements,feminist literary criticism has been moving into the mainstream and has involving more and more women in reading and writing.As a result,women have subverted the male discourse by constructing one of their own.Such feminist writers as Helene Cixous,Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva have argued that the woman’s body is a site where power is exerted and that women should write their bodies into text,the world and history.Illuminated by feminist ideology,Garner committed herself to writing first for self-salvation and then for reconstruction and has since been writing in a rapidly changing feminist milieu in ways that enlighten feminist thinking.In the course of her writing,Garner has transformed her identity as a Feminist-Libertarian,evident in her early attempts at writing with the purpose of saving herself from victimhood,into a post-feminist trying to reconstruct male-female relationships from a position of transcendence.In Chapter Two,Garner’s three major fictions,Monkey Grip,The Children’s Bach and Cosmo Cosmolino(1992)are interpreted respectively to establish Garner’s identity as a feminist writer who searches for a way of both physical and spiritual transgression.Monkey Grip,one of the first sexually explicit and sustained expressions of female desire in Australian women’s writing,represents a significant turning point by demonstrating that the messy struggle of a woman’s domestic and sexual life can form the basis for fiction.In The Children’s Bach,Garner works against the notions of traditionally gendered spaces and traditional gender roles by bringing some of her male characters inside the house and sending some of her female characters out into the public,thus subverting the usual binary oppositions. With the language of music intersecting the theme of love,she constructs a political scenario in which the relationships of men and women as well as their respective relations to language are questioned.At the same time,The Children’s Bach is called "a moral story" because at the end of the story Athena,who walks out of her marriage, returns home and the Fox family survives.This work embodies a celebration of family life in the context of the thousand and one natural shocks that it is heir to in modern times.Cosmo Cosmolino indicates a surge in Garner’s subject matter and her approach:her thematic tackling of life and death,betrayal and retribution, resurrection and salvation,and her stylistic shifting from realism to surrealism.Here three seemingly unconnected but related stories are connected by recurrent characters and themes.The stories celebrate peripheral female figures who transgress regulatory systems in Garner’s "world,little world."Chapter Three is dedicated to the discussion of the transcendent state of feminist consciousness permeating Garner’s nonfiction,which includes The First Stone,True Stories(1996),The Feel of Steel(2001)and Joe Cinque’s Consolation.While crossing to nonfiction writing,Garner’s feminist stance has substantially changed.In The First Stone,by raising some questions about sex and power,Garner stopped seeing women as victims in harassment cases.Instead,she condemned the young feminists as priggish and punitive,who went so far as to "wreck a man’s life" "with a nerdish pass at the party." Garner’s sympathy for men made her the target of feminists and earned her notoriety as a feminist traitor.Her following two nonfictions,True Stories and The Feel of Steel,unveil in a way the paths that led to the writing of The First Stone.In True Stories,her long fascination with institutions and her long-standing concern with the necessity for men and women to coexist peacefully in the world are evident.The Feel of Steel provides some of the clues to her efforts to transcend her earlier positions on life and art.In Joe Cinque’s Consolation,Garner writes with a broader mind and vision,reconstructing the subjectivity of men and women with a "narcissistic drama" where a pieta mother fights against a "femme fatale," symbolizing the generational war of feminists.Finally,in the conclusion of the dissertation,I argue that Garner has evolved into a post-feminist writer who celebrates hybrid identities of women and embraces harmonious relationships between sexes.Garner is special among many Australian women writers in several ways.In the first place,she is a feminist known both as a recipient and an exponent of feminist ideology.She grew from a feminist-libertarian practising transgression to a post-feminist hoping for the peaceful coexistence of men and women in the patriarchy,via intellectual or attitudinal transcendence.In the second place,she is a feminist writer who has been writing about women and subverting the hegemony of the male discourse through reconstruction.Her uniqueness lies in a steady manifestation of courage and honesty within a changing feminist milieu.Last but not least,Garner’s writing shows her striving as a post-feminist to integrate the different aspects of her being and achieve a union between the feminist,the writer,and the woman that she is.更多还原