二十世紀歐美女性小說中的母女關係

行 政 院 國 家 科 學 委 員 會 專 題 研 究 計 畫 成 果 報 告

二 十 世 紀 歐 美 女 性 小 說 中 的 母 女 關 係

The Mother-Daughter Relationship in Twentieth-Century

American and European Women’s Novels

計畫編號：87-2411-H-002-039 執行期間：86年8月1日至88年3月31日 計畫主持人：劉 亮 雅 處理方式： ■可立即對外提供參考 □一年後可對外提供參考 □兩年後可對外提供參考 （必要時，本會得延展發表時限） 執行單位：國立台灣大學外國語文學系 中華民國八十八年三月

目 錄

第一部份：「二 十 世 紀 歐 美 女 性 小 說 中 的 母 女 關 係 」 研 究 報 告

〈湯亭亭《女戰士》中的母女關係〉… … … .… 2

第二部份：歐 美 女 性 小 說 批 評 與 女 性 主 義 母 女 關 係 理 論 論 文 及 專 書 註 解 書 目 1.Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing… … … .14

2.Marguerite Duras’s The Lover… … … 36

3.Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness… … … 44

4.Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior… … … .54

5.Edith Wharton's The Mother's Recompense… … … .94

6.Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster… … … 97

7.Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse… … … 110

8.Feminist Theory on Motherhood, Daughterhood and Mother-Daughter Relationship… … … .172

湯亭亭《女戰士》中的母女關係

劉亮雅

傳統敘事常奠基於家庭結構。反之亦然，傳統家庭觀常立基於敘事結構。 佛洛伊德 (Sigmund Freud) 援引希臘底比斯 (Thebes) 國王伊迪帕斯 (Oedipus) 殺 父戀母故事，組構了以男性為中心的父、母、子三角關係家庭羅曼史，亦充分說 明父權父系家庭結構的權力互動力學。在此結構與敘事中，父子關係雖然緊張， 但兒子為未來的父親，父子依舊相承，母親卻淪為服務父權家庭的客體、他者。 女兒也是客體、他者，因她被認為是未來的母親。因此在波瀾壯闊的第二波女性 主義運動之前的女性主義者如西蒙波娃 (Simone de Beauvoir) 均主張將女人從使 她屈居為第二性的母職解脫出來，認為母職與女性自主基本上有所衝突，而她們 與自己母親的關係自然也是敵對競爭的。然而當第二波女性主義運動強調女性情 誼、女性文化傳承時，卻重新思考的母性、女性與女性主義的關係。在召喚姊妹 情誼的同時，並開始召喚母女情誼。這些女性主義理論與文本改寫了佛洛伊德的 家庭羅曼史。而隨著女性主義理論的深化、細緻化，傳統心理分析較少觸及的母 女關係受到了深入探討。像法國心理分析女性主義者伊希葛黑 (Luce Irigaray) 有 關母女關係的理論就極具啟發性。 本文試圖以伊希葛黑有關母女關係的理論檢視華裔美國女作家湯亭亭 (Maxine Hong Kingston)小說《女戰士》(The Woman Warrior)一書中的母女關係。

雖然小說中另外涉及移民經驗及種族、階級議題，然而其所刻劃的母女關係卻極 為深刻複雜，而頗能與伊希葛黑的理論相參照。本文意欲探討以下問題：《女戰 士》中女兒為何既戀母又與母親關係緊張？父權思想是否造成母女關係緊張？女 兒如何協商她因母親拒絕或威權的痛苦？母親在文本裡發聲了嗎？母親是父權 的共謀者抑或抗拒者？女兒可能擁有或想像一個與她關係平等、相互撫慰的母親 嗎？在深談《女戰士》中的母女關係前，我先稍微介紹、比較諸多母女關係的理 論。 1. 女性主義者有關母女關係的理論 談女性主義者有關母女關係的理論，不能不先談心理分析大師佛洛伊德的 伊迪帕斯情結理論。這除了因為就性心理而言，此理論深深影響了二十世紀思 維，更因為它背後仍拖著維多利亞時期父權、異性戀中心的臍帶。佛洛伊德的伊 迪帕斯情結理論，以及後來拉崗 (Jacques Lacan) 的「回歸佛洛伊德」都是從男 性，尤其兒子角度解釋親子互動如何影響個人性心理的成長。而儘管被假定為異 性戀的兒子具殺父戀母情結，但兒子為未來的父親，父子依舊相承，母親卻淪為 「他者」。女兒也是「他者」，因為小女孩被認為是「已被閹割的」，而小男孩

則有「閹割焦慮」(castration complex)。佛洛伊德認為，小男孩視其凸出的陰莖 (penis) 為優越 ，小女孩凹進的陰道則代表匱缺。小女孩因已被閹割，因此羨慕 小男孩的陽具。反之，小男孩則害怕像小女孩一樣失去陽具，因此有閹割焦慮 (”Three Essays” 195)。佛洛伊德又說，小女孩在前伊迪帕斯時期，其原始力比多 (libido) 愛戀對象為母親，幻想母親為無所不能的陽性母親 (phallic mother)。但 進入象徵秩序卻需放棄對母親的愛戀，轉而愛戀父親，並認同被閹割的無力的母 親，長大後再藉由生兒子、成為男孩的母親而借得陽物。佛洛伊德的陽具中心理 論廣受女性主義者撻伐 (例如 Beauvoir，Millett)，但蜜秋爾 (Juliet Mitchell) 則適 切地指出，我們可把伊迪帕斯理論看成是男尊女卑思想對兩性性心理的模塑。而 許多第二波女性主義運動者則開始重新思考母女關係，找尋新的模型，以便成為 女性情誼及女性認同的基礎。

1969年以來如火如荼的第二波女性主義運動已發展出許多理論與批評，改 寫伊迪帕斯理論。非但母親與女兒的主體性受到應有重視，母女關係亦被深入探 討。美國心理學家邱德蘿 (Nancy Chodorow) 的《複製母性》(The Reproduction of

Mothering)(1978) 便改寫了伊迪帕斯，探討父權母職機制下依然親密的母女關 係。邱德蘿認為男外女內的父權分工方式，使男孩自小被訓練為獨立自主、向外 發展，而女孩則依戀、陪伴母親，正因女孩也將為人妻母，母女擁有許多共同的 女性經驗，母女關係因此格外親密。然而邱德蘿的理論基本上未脫父權、異性戀 婚姻制的思考，女性依然被吸納為母性，遂削減了在長遠的父權宰制歷史下、母 女綿密的關係作為抗爭動力的可能性。 美國女性主義者、女詩人瑞琪 (Adrienne Rich) 在《女人所生：母職做為 經驗與建制》(Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution)(1976)一 書中則反思母職究竟為一建制，抑或女人的選擇？瑞琪是在歷經懷孕期間及產後 憂鬱症後，開始思索強迫性母職以及百分之百母親帶給女人的精神壓力。瑞琪並 探討自己與母親之間的緊張關係，結論是她與母割裂乃是為了成為女性主義者， 拒絕再當女性受害者 (253)。另一方面，在〈強迫異性戀機制與女同性戀存在〉 (“Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”)(1980)一文中，瑞琪批判父權 婚姻體制，提出女人認同女人、姊妹情誼理念，卻又以女孩最早愛戀對象為母親 做為此理念的基礎。在瑞琪看似矛盾的論述中，顯現母女關係的複雜性。母女關 係的融洽與緊張也呼應了姊妹情誼理念與女人實際差異所造成的衝突。

美國女性主義者茄菲葛妮 (Bell Gale Chevigny) 的〈女兒書寫：朝向女人傳 記的理論〉(”Daughters Writing: Toward a Theory of Women’s Biography”)(1983) 則 提出女性主義學術論述中，幻想姊妹情誼或互為義母 (surrogate mother) 義女的交 融關係能發揮強大力量：「幻想義母在諸多方面不同於幻想理想母親。前者乃是 一種交互 (reciprocity) 的幻想。兩個義母絕非無所不能，而是參與鬥爭。兩者哺 育的都不是嬰兒，而是女孩或女人。而對彼此而言，哺育乃是認可自己的自主性」 (95-96)。換言之，姐妹互為義母，取代了真實的母親。然而真實的母女關係要如 何看待呢？

依希葛黑提出女人系譜、女性傳承等理論，試圖重新思考真實的母女關 係。在〈建立女性譜系〉(“Etablir un genealogie de femmes”)(1979) 一文中，她認 為，為人母親與女性主義者不衝突，因母親仍是具有情慾與社會主體的女人，也 就是說，女人不能被化約為陽具中心所建構的母親，而這當然也暗示了社會 ( 性 別) 結構連帶需要有所變革。依希葛黑的母女傳承，強調彼此既非完全獨立也非 完全共生 (Grosz 120-21)。這些進步性的理論與依希葛黑在《女人另類的內視鏡》 (Speculum of the Other Woman)(1985)、《並非單一的性別》(This Sex Which Is Not One)(1985) 中激進地批判父權對母職、女體的建構，互相呼應。然而除此之外，

依希葛黑在〈而一個人沒有他者動不了〉(”And One Doesn’t Stir Without the Other“)(1981) 中卻又探討女兒對母親遂愛恨矛盾。依希葛黑描繪女兒既愛母親、 吸收母親，母親也不斷吸納女兒，然而父權體制下當母親太過被母職吸納時，她 會讓女兒窒息、癱瘓，模糊了母女界限分野，致使母女差異不穩定。 相較於邱德蘿過於傳統、瑞琪提出議題但不夠理論化、茄菲葛妮只處理義 母義女，依希葛黑的母女關係則兼具進步性、深入性與理論性，用來參照湯亭亭 《女戰士》中的母女關係，應十分有用。 2. 湯亭亭《女戰士》中的母女關係 出版於1975年，正值第二波女性主義運動鼎盛期，湯亭亭的《女戰士》副 標題為「群鬼縈繞的女孩時期回憶錄」(“Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts”)， 全書以擬回憶錄1

的語調，回溯其成長期與母親 (故事及話語) 的愛恨矛盾，具 有濃厚的女性意識。《女戰士》由五篇彼此相關的故事所組成，除了第四篇〈在 西宮〉(“At the Western Palace”) 外，皆以女兒湯亭亭為第一人稱敘述者2

，並以其 所回溯母親勇蘭所講的故事及對母女關係的著墨使五篇故事達到統合。華裔美國 移民家庭的背景，夾纏了種族文化差異與新舊價值衝突，倍增書中母女關係的複 雜度。卻也更凸顯出父權下母女傳承的需求及障礙。《女戰士》中的女敘述者與 母親均具藝術家特質，母女關係中認同、愛戀及恐懼、緊張的糾纏，深深影響了 女敘述者的創作與想像。更特別的是，敘述者從長大後的現在回溯成長歲月裡縈 1 本書號稱自傳，曾獲1976年全美書評人選拔為最佳非虛構類書籍，然而全書的敘述策略卻刻 意打破「自傳」文類，並採取後現代拼貼方式，「融合神話、傳說、幻想、與杜撰的敘述」(Lim 280)。書中不但並不以敘述者女孩時期實際的生活點滴為焦點，且多次出現真實與虛構的混雜。 像〈無名女子〉中有關姑姑婚外懷孕，敘述者講了她想像的三個不同版本，而真實則不可知。 〈白虎〉沒讓我們確知勇蘭原來如何說花木蘭故事。〈一支胡笳曲〉一開始更直接說有關月蘭 阿姨去洛杉磯尋夫受辱的經過 ( 亦即前一個故事〈在西宮〉)，敘述者乃是聽妹妹轉述弟弟的話， 再將之扭曲改編 (“twisted into designs” WW 164)而成 。〈一支胡笳曲〉中，敘述者並懷疑究竟 其所回憶的事件確實發生過或為其幻想。

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繞不去的母權魅影，頗可以用伊希葛黑的理論加以剖析。 伊希葛黑指出，如果孩童與母親的前伊迪帕斯關係是心理分析裡的黑暗大 陸，那麼母女關係必然是「黑暗大陸當中的黑暗大陸」(引自 Grosz 120)。表面 上，《女戰士》中，女兒重講母親所講的故事即已代表顛覆父權的母女傳承。然 而對湯亭亭而言，這份母女傳承卻令她百感交集。《女戰士》中的母親自有矛盾： 她在中國時一度是新女性，教育湯亭亭時卻又沿襲傳統父權、階級思想。她既說 花木蘭的故事，又以重男輕女的語言管教女兒，甚至以買女奴的故事驚嚇女兒。 在敘述者心目中，強悍獨立、精力旺盛、擅說故事的母親兼具父權代言人/幫凶、 女英雄、法師、恐怖母親、搗蛋鬼、藝術家的混合，令她產生錯綜情結，不知何 以對應。湯亭亭一度懷疑嚴峻的母親並不愛她，卻發現母親其實過於愛她，但母 愛不斷吸納她反而教她窒息。整本書是她在想像裡與心靈裡與母親 (的傳承) 重 新協商的過程，在這過程中她也漸漸看到了母親身上的女人。 伊希葛黑批判傳統母女傳承並未區別「母性」(maternity) 與「女性」 (femininity)，由於傳統總是將「女性」收編為「母性」，不重視母親做為一個女 人的個體性，致使母親將其愛傾注於孩子身上。而對於女兒而言，此種母女傳承 也可能繼續馴化女兒，將其「女性」吸納為「母性」，抹煞其做為女人的個體性， 從而為父權服務。《女戰士》中的母親在某方面扮演了父權代言人角色，從而掩 蓋她乃是父權下無力的、「被閹割的」母親。她披覆了父權律法，雖然她也受其 壓迫。她的權威位置，係由於她與父權共謀而被賦予，她常是訓誡、壓制、規訓 男尊女卑價值的代表，使敘述者心生恐懼、怨憤。例如〈無名女子〉(”No Name Woman”) 中，母親在湯亭亭初經時，告訴她往昔在廣東老家姑姑因婚外性行為 懷孕受到嚴懲：非但村人突襲老家、家人辱罵姑姑，致令姑姑抱著新生兒投井自 盡，姑姑並被家族除名，永遠不得再提。母親講述姑姑的故事，目的似乎是警告 女兒不得犯下父權律法，以免羞辱父母，於是初經並未帶來成長的喜悅，反而使 女兒對身體產生恐懼。母親不准她向別人 (包括父親) 提起姑姑，則進一步顯現 她與父權律法共謀。〈白虎〉(”White Tigers”) 中母親從不因湯亭亭拿了全A而讚 美她，反倒說全A不能當飯吃，比不上花木蘭既救了家人，也救了一整個村子。 即使母親講花木蘭的英勇故事，部分目的亦在強調孝道及宗族、社群意識，花木 蘭返鄉復員後依然扮演好媳婦、好妻子、好母親、甚至好女兒的角色。與此同時， 母親強調女孩不值錢、長大後將成為妻子和奴隸，貶女性的論調使她成了父權幫 凶。母親高聲罵湯亭亭是壞女孩，更銘刻在她心裡。這使得湯亭亭抗拒結婚，拒 絕扮演賢妻良母，但她哀嘆「即使到現在，中國依舊纏了我的腳」(WW 48)。 伊希葛黑在《並非單一的性別》中表示，母女傳承需小心避免「對彼此說 同樣的語言」，否則女兒「將複製同樣的歷史」(This Sex 205)。也就是說母親如 果複製父權價值將使得女兒難以認同女性身分，繼續循傳統模式被父權化約為生 殖工具。《女戰士》中，母語既是母親的話也是廣東話。對湯亭亭而言，母親的 故事與母語、中國交混，充滿了對女性的歧視。例如古中文裡，將女人與奴隸打 上了等號。女人自稱為「奴家」，便意謂著「讓女人用她們自己的語言規馴了自

己」(WW 47)。而像「養女兒不如養鵝」、「女兒是賠錢貨」等長輩琅琅上口的 諺語更令她義憤填膺。在最激憤時，她拒絕自己的女性身體，渴望成為男孩 ( WW 47)。當然母親並非唯一重男輕女的長輩，像陽剛的三叔公不帶女孫輩出門玩樂 (WW 47)，鄙視女孩的程度比母親只有過之而無不及。但母親的故事卻令她恐懼 回到中國可能被賣為女奴。〈法師〉 (”Shaman”) 中母親講述其在老家買女奴時 像挑貨色一樣檢視、討價還價，這使得母親更添殘酷、威嚇氣息，與中國舊社會 溺女嬰、賣女兒的陋俗有所纏結。孩提時代，湯亭亭試圖逃離母親所講的戰爭、 暴力、棄嬰、被打死的瘋女人等故事，她甚至想切斷母語，變得像美國女人。因 為如果她完全複製母親話語，她似乎等於否定自己做為女兒/女人的基本權利。 伊希葛黑在〈而一個人沒有他者動不了〉裡怨恨母愛過多使女兒癱瘓。伊 希葛黑暗示：當女人被化約為母親，喪失其做為女人的社會與性愛身分時，她能 得到社會認可與價值的便僅剩下她哺育的能力，她不能給予孩子語言、法律、陽 物 (phallus)，而僅能給予孩子食物及愛。於是她不是成了愛太多、令女兒窒息的 母親，便是自私寡愛的母親 (Grosz 121)。《女戰士》中，母親講故事似乎打破 了傳統母親只能給予孩子食物、滋養，而不能給予孩子屬於象徵秩序的語言之限 制。然而在湯亭亭的敘述中，母親講故事卻與餵食兩者混雜，如果母親餵食代表 母愛，母親亦藉講故事愛女兒，但母愛過多了。此外，母親又是個飽受饑荒、戰 亂之苦、年近半百才移民美國的廣東女子，以致她過度為女兒擔憂，便以各種恐 怖故事嚇阻禁制女兒自由，從而達到保護的目的。對湯亭亭而言，母親不斷講述 與中國有關的故事，似藉傳統中國價值吸收女兒，使女兒愈像她，便無法離開她 而完全美國化。然而，令女兒反感的是，傳統中國價值常為父權服務。 母親餵食與講故事的意象交混，並與中國有關。例如湯亭亭說，「我母親 用漏斗把中國貫進我們耳裡… 要我回到我從沒去過的中國」(WW 76) 。湯亭亭 抗拒母親食物與抗拒母親故事幾乎同時。她畏懼母親講述的非理性、鬼魅、恐怖、 神秘故事，正如她害怕母親所煮的浣熊、臭鼬、鴿子、烏龜等食物 (WW 90)， 害怕母親強迫她吃下四、五天的剩菜 (WW 92)。湯亭亭抗拒吃，還纏結了別的 錯綜心理。中國人口過多、饑荒戰亂頻仍，因此重視吃，吃飯時不准說話 (WW 11)，並且強調存活之「必需」(Necessity)，輕視創造、想像之「揮霍」(Extravagance) (WW 6)。存活主義與父權的結合，更強化對女性的歧視：一方面視女兒為米蟲， 不願餵養，另一方面，女兒又肩負未來母親角色，需學煮飯、伺候家人，因此湯 亭亭相信，如果她能「不吃」，或許才能變成俠女 (WW 48)。她厭惡中國人以 「吃過了嗎」為寒喧語，而寧可以塑膠過活 (WW 91)。 伊希葛黑理想的女性系譜乃是挖掘出那超乎母職的女性部分。當母親能給 予女兒超乎母職的社會與性愛部分，便能認同其做為女人的社會身分。而此種母 女傳承亦暗示了被象徵秩序所壓抑的母女之愛，對伊希葛黑而言，女孩唯有找回 其最初對母親的同性愛戀，否則她總已從自己放逐 (“is always exiled from herself”) (”Women’s Exile” 76)。在另一個意義上，《女戰士》中，母親的故事又不只是貶 女人而已，而也有強烈女性認同的部分。母親講故事代表其超乎母親的社會身

分，並確實給予了湯亭亭屬於語言的力量。母親講的花木蘭故事讓湯亭亭嚮往當 女英雄、俠女，〈白虎〉一開始便禮讚女戰士：「當我們中國女孩聽大人講故事 時，就明瞭：如果我們長大以後當妻子或奴隸，便失敗了。我們可以做女英雄、 俠女」(19)，甚至對纏足的陋習做逆向思考：「也許女人以前太厲害了，才被綁 小腳」(19)。當女英雄、俠女乃是樹立鮮明的社會身分。〈白虎〉裡的花木蘭故 事更蘊含了女性兼顧事業及妻母角色的理想。一反〈無名女子〉中對女性性慾的 壓抑，〈白虎〉裡女性身體與情慾均被接納，花木蘭既是將軍，又是妻子、母親， 其丈夫千里尋她，在花木蘭產子後丈夫又攜子回去扶養，成為花木蘭背後的全力 支持者。或許花木蘭故事由湯亭亭轉述，參雜了她成長時期想像的投射，並非勇 蘭當初講時的原貌，然而女兒轉述、改寫母親故事，從而叛離父權，卻也還給女 兒及母親其女人身分。 就全書的結構而言，《女戰士》既是女兒的故事，也是母親的故事，尤其 是母親做為女人的故事。在中國，勇蘭曾是個新女性，用丈夫寄給她的錢唸產婆 學校。她隻身坐船離鄉時，冒險行經盜匪出沒的河道，後來衣錦榮歸成了女醫師。 在某方面她也像膽識過人的花木蘭，她還是會馴鬼、制鬼的法師。然而當她1940 年到了美國後，卻只能開洗衣店，與丈夫一起靠勞力為生。勇蘭自己的故事揭示 了女性多麼容易失敗，於是貶女兒/女人的話語也有激勵湯亭亭的意思，勇蘭講 小姑投井自盡與花木蘭盡孝的故事則教導湯亭亭在父權下的生存策略。然而聽在 湯亭亭耳裡，卻感到了禁制與壓迫。勇蘭之侷限於母親角色並不全然因為父權律 法，而也是移民美國後、成了種族與文化「他者」所使然。勇蘭年近半百才移民 美國、生下六名子女，在中國大陸她原是新女性、女醫師，到了美國卻淪為開洗 衣店、靠勞力賺錢，她對女兒的諄諄告誡及管束反映了她因為種族、文化及語言 障礙，喪失了社會與性愛的身分，遂將她的愛全部投注在孩子身上，但她的愛， 連同她所傳達的中年憂懼、中國鄉愁、半新半舊的思想及對美國文化的適應不 良，對於女兒無疑是太沉重了。 伊希葛黑的〈而一個人沒有他者動不了〉裡，女兒懇求母親不要愛太多： 「妳把自己放進我口中，我便窒息了。… . 讓妳自己/我都在外面吧。在妳流給我 的東西裡，別吞噬了妳自己，別吞噬了我。我多麼希望我們都能在那裡。於是一 個人才不會消逝在他者裡，或他者消逝在一個人裡」(61)。《女戰士》中，湯亭 亭有時候似乎弄不清母親是否愛她，然而至少在下意識的層面，她知道母親深愛 她，並可能愛得太多了。此外，母親在某一方面是她最重要的角色模範，她需要 母親，雖然她又極力抗拒母親。《女戰士》充滿了一個青春期華裔女孩對母親桎 梏的怨恨，此怨恨甚至延續至其成年。在〈一支胡笳曲〉(“A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”) 中湯亭亭怪罪母親割了她的聲帶，以致她在美國幼稚園時三年不說 話，被視為智商零蛋，留級一年。這同時也意味母親的傳承使她太認同中國文化， 以致產生說英文的障礙，較難以進入美國白人象徵秩序。湯亭亭懷疑母親要將她 嫁給智障中國男人，她的積怨終於爆發，在洗衣店的飯桌上站起來對著父母歇斯 底里吼叫，宣佈她不要做奴隸或妻子，她將不再唸中文學校，並將競選學生代表、

參加社團，以便上大學。她並宣稱拒絕再聽母親故事，指控母親講故事時撒謊， 混淆真假，使她無法區分何者為真。她以一個被壓抑聲音的女兒指控母親的威 權：「哈，妳無法攔阻我講話。妳以前試圖割下我舌頭，卻沒效」(WW 202) 。 中國人的貶女、孝道文化及湯亭亭對獨立自由的渴望造成母女緊張衝突， 而這還夾纏了兩種文化的衝突。芭姬麗佳 (Crista Bacchilega) 認為，湯亭亭的童 年故事重申佛洛依德心理分析裡著名的拒絕母親，乃因她需進入白人美國的象徵 秩序，在此語言、書寫及教育均屬於父親 (106-07)。然而即使在與母親對峙時， 她亦說不過母親，口若懸河的母親乃是champion talker，母親大聲譏諷湯亭亭聽 不懂笑話：「妳連笑話和實際人生都區別不了。妳還不夠聰明。連真假都分不清」 (WW 202) 。湯亭亭指控母親總說她醜，母親則說「中國人總這麼說。我們喜歡 說反話」(WW 203) 。母親的咄咄逼人、能言善道令她窒息，以致她需遠離母親 才能活得好。即使成年，湯亭亭每次返家看母親便會生病、難以呼吸 (WW 108)， 彷彿被少女時期的夢魘所糾纏。雖然隔著遠距離時「我可以相信我的家人基本上 是愛我的」(WW 52) ，但她仍被父母掛在嘴上的鄙視女兒的話語所傷，而需以在 美國社會裡的成功武裝自己，證明自己不是賠錢貨，有資格上桌吃飯 ( WW 52)。 她痛恨母親向她告解 (WW 104)，似乎由於她不忍說話頂撞、刺傷了年老的母親， 而更是感到壓力，「聲帶斷了，好痛」 (WW 102)。當她婉拒母親承歡膝下的要 求時，母親的大眼直盯著她，令她內疚又怨恨 (WW 108)。 蓋樂菩 (Jane Gallop) 認為，伊希葛黑的〈而一個人沒有他者動不了〉裡， 女兒怨恨母愛過多使她癱瘓，宣稱除了脫離母親綑綁否則難以擁有身分，卻又發 現她無法與母完全分開 (Gallop 113)。《女戰士》中也有頗為類似的糾葛。湯亭 亭當著家人公開拒絕母親 (故事)，以便甩脫非理性、鬼魅、複雜與神秘，而能 同化 (assimilate) 於白人美國所代表的邏輯、簡單、秩序、正常，不料卻得到了 一個極其反諷的結果：「水泥自我口中洩出，將森林蓋滿高速公路和人行道。給 我塑膠、週期表、電視餐 (裡面的蔬菜簡化為豆子配小胡蘿蔔)。讓照明燈射進 黑暗角落：沒有鬼」(WW 204)。亦即同化於主流價值未必能獲得精神出路：過於 理性、正常的世界同時也單調而缺乏想像力。此外，在激烈地公開指控、拒絕母 親之前，湯亭亭最初的渴望卻是母親的分享與瞭解：「要是我能讓母親曉得[我 的秘密]清單，她 (以及世界) 就會變得更像我，而我也就不會再孤單了」(WW 198) 。 另一方面，德米卓珂菩樂絲 (Stephanie A. Demetrakopoulos) 極具洞見地指 出，在某個層次 (大概主要是下意識) 上，勇蘭形塑、刺激了湯亭亭的強壯、獨 立、對自由的追尋。割聲帶、花木蘭的故事均暗示自由的可能，甚至勇蘭邀來的 怪異、智障追求者亦可能是為了逼湯亭亭更為獨立 (Demetrakopoulos 203)。勇蘭 的故事及話語裡虛構與真實混雜，充滿了矛盾歧義，使她既是壓迫者也是解放 者。就以割聲帶一事來說，可能從未發生，勇蘭最初說的目的或許在嚇阻湯亭亭 不准饒舌，但後來勇蘭卻解釋為係要幫女兒學說話，使她通曉各種語言 (WW 164)。湯亭亭反抗乃是發現糾纏與曖昧的先決條件，在湯亭亭的反抗中，愈發看

到其母的多面。在〈無名女子〉中，湯亭亭反抗母親訓誡，遂將母親講述的姑姑 故事加油添醋，想像女性情慾做為顛覆父權的可能性，讓姑姑成了她的女性先 驅，狂野而自由。似乎母親故事的恐怖氣息反而挑起她的想像力。並且，相對於 全家族沆瀣一氣對姑姑的噤聲，湯亭亭藉書寫打破了緘默所代表的父權下的共 謀，算是替無名姑姑向父權報了仇。在此湯亭亭並未探索母親在講述時隱含的洩 密意義，她感到的毋寧只是母親的禁錮。然而洩密無疑鑿穿了森嚴的父權律法， 露出縫隙。葛爾尼希特 (Donald C. Goellnicht) 指出，「母親的口述傳統打破、顛 覆了父權使女人噤聲的力量：當母親告訴亭亭此一故事時，便打破了緘默，而提 供給她一個範例」(126) 。 《女戰士》中，湯亭亭為了掙脫令她窒息的母女關係糾葛，也曾試圖以女 人看女人的方式看母親。〈法師〉裡，她翻閱勇蘭的產婆學校畢業證書、凝視四 十年前勇蘭的畢業團體照時，即是這樣一個有趣的時刻：「我對她太熟悉了，唯 有將她與其它女人相比較，才能看出她是不是漂亮、快樂、聰明」(WW 58) 。在 仔細端詳之後，湯亭亭的結論是：「她聰慧、警覺、漂亮。我看不出她是否快樂」 (WW 59) 。她又想像勇蘭37歲唸產婆學校終於嘗到獨立自主的快樂，以及隱瞞十 歲年齡而依然比同學年長十歲的讀書壓力。最好玩的是，她想像勇蘭隻身跑進鬧 鬼的房間，心情應當是害怕的，但因為勇蘭是龍女，「她可以讓自己不軟弱。危 險期間，她張開龍爪、抖起她紅色的鱗片，露出盤繞的綠色條紋。危險乃是炫耀 的好機會」(WW 67) 。而湯亭亭對於勇蘭的行醫原則也頗有微詞：勇蘭醫名遠播 乃因她從不收瀕死病人所致 (WW 96) 。〈在西宮〉中改為第三人稱敘述，則更 進一步對勇蘭平視。因為〈一支胡笳曲〉一開始便告訴我們，〈在西宮〉依然是 湯亭亭寫的 (WW 163)。〈在西宮〉描述勇蘭極力慫恿、一手安排長居香港的妹 妹月蘭前來美國，向已經重婚的妹夫興師問罪，重回正妻的寶座。而結果卻是灰 頭土臉，月蘭被其功成名就的丈夫羞辱、恫嚇，最後得了妄想症，死於精神病院。 〈在西宮〉嘲諷勇蘭誇大的復仇想像，使她幾乎反客為主，沉醉於構思各種版本 的馴夫、奪夫、擺平二太太的計劃。正因勇蘭無視於月蘭的脆弱以及事態之不利， 她等於是害月蘭的罪魁禍首。 在對勇蘭的挖苦嘲弄中，湯亭亭也暗示自嘲，因為她們母女有著巧妙的相 似。勇蘭和湯亭亭皆是龍女、長女 (WW 67 ，109)，都好強、不服輸。即如勇蘭 千方百計要讓柔弱的月蘭強硬起來，湯亭亭也曾百般折磨一個柔弱、不說話的中 國女孩，逼她說話，變強悍。而即如對勇蘭而言，月蘭代表了失敗的中國女人， 刺激她變強乃是炫耀自己的美國成功；對湯亭亭而言，那個女孩一如刻板印象中 柔軟的中國娃娃，是她試圖摒棄的軟弱自我 (中國)，由於她自己也曾有語言障 礙、說不出英文，刺激那女孩遂也是強化自己的成功。但就像勇蘭一樣，湯亭亭 的努力失敗了。女孩依然不開口，湯亭亭則在欺凌她後內疚得臥病一年半。而最 特別的乃是《女戰士》中對書寫與想像的嘲弄，再度連結了母女。就像在月蘭事 件上，勇蘭誇大的想像惹了禍，在〈一支胡笳曲〉裡湯亭亭也自承，她的故事刻 意將現實誇大扭曲 (WW 163)。在這個意義上，湯亭亭並沒有背棄、遺忘母親講

的故事及其所代表的 (中國)女性口述傳統。

如果伊希葛黑的〈而一個人沒有他者動不了〉裡刻劃女兒被母愛癱瘓，渴 望掙脫母親而獨立，那麼伊希葛黑《並非單一的性別》的最後一篇〈當我們的雙 唇一起說話〉(“When Our Lips Speak Together”) 則宣布了一種新的母女關係。此 處伊希葛黑曖昧地同時以母女雙重身分說話，打破母女的二元對立。葛若慈 (Elizabeth Grosz) 指出，此處用「我們」「並非將一個身分吸納或融入另一身分， 而是讓兩者融合，不留剩餘，也不使任一受損。她們分享言語和歡樂」(126)。 《女戰士》中的母女傳承也曾臻至此境界。花木蘭故事顯現母女傳承，湯亭亭跟 著母親吟唱，母親說故事的能力也孕育了湯亭亭說故事的能力：「夜夜母親講故 事直到我們入睡。我分不清故事何時終，夢何時始，她的聲音成了我睡夢中女英 雄的聲音」(WW 19) 。〈白虎〉裡所轉述的花木蘭故事已混雜了女兒與母親的版 本，此處的花木蘭變成了第一人稱，暗示母、女、花木蘭的混雜。非但如此，花 木蘭成長過程猶如功夫片中俠女，甚至代父從軍還鎔接了岳飛裸背、母親刺字的 故事。然而，岳飛背上只刺了盡忠報國四字，此處花木蘭背上刺滿了咒罵仇家的 字，在關鍵時刻花木蘭裸背也成了克敵的致命武器，這樣的安排既充滿想像力的 奔馳，也暗示了湯亭亭所投射的自我意識：文字，較諸武力，更是復仇的利器。 在〈無名女子〉中，她已藉說出姑姑故事替姑姑報仇；在〈白虎〉的結尾，她表 示將以文字報仇，暗示她這個現代俠女不但要為家人向奪去他們洗衣店的白人報 仇，也要為女性向 (中國) 父權家庭報仇 (WW 53)。因為就像前面談過，即使花 木蘭故事也有被父權收編的痕跡，但這並非全是勇蘭之錯，而也是父權過於強大 所致。 對成年的湯亭亭而言，要臻至伊希葛黑所說的母女交融、但非任何一方被 另一方吸納、融入是一件困難重重的事。因這意謂彼此互為主體而又能相愛相 需，而這又涉及了具不同價值觀與文化認同的女人之間如何協商差異：一個是認 同中國、渴望兒孫滿堂的年老母親，另一個則是認同華裔美國、渴望擁有自我空 間的女兒。然而在窒息與癱瘓外，書中的母女關係也達成某種協商，而逐漸出現 了「一種溫和逗弄、相互交融的關係」(Ahokas 125)。〈法師〉中有一幕動人的 和解：湯亭亭返家探親、倍感母愛壓力，終於說出她對家 (也即是對母親) 的情 結，這時勇蘭突然打了哈欠，以多年不曾用過的暱稱「小狗子」對她說：「那麼， 妳離開會比較好。加州天氣一定不適合妳。妳可以偶爾回來看我。… .當然，小 狗子，妳應該走」(WW 108)。母親讓她走，是個重要的讓步。而〈一支胡笳曲〉 中，勇蘭在得知湯亭亭也講故事後，新近講了一個關於她自己母親是戲癡的故 事，更暗示了母女的和解與傳承。湯亭亭轉述母親故事：外婆在匪寇肆虐的時代， 如常攜眷看戲，竟神奇地避了劫難。而湯亭亭則接續此故事，她想像外婆在看戲 時，聽過漢朝女詩人蔡琰所寫的「胡笳十八拍」，便講起了蔡琰寫此曲的故事。 庫瑟 (Thomas Couser)指出，蔡琰的故事巧妙地適用於勇蘭與亭亭 (Couser 236)。 如同勇蘭，蔡琰的匈奴兒子只說胡語，蔡琰用他們聽不懂的中國話講故事，但她 最後也懂得欣賞胡人的音樂 (Cheung 171)。如同亭亭，蔡琰被拘留、放逐，感到

不屬於任何文化、難以溝通的痛苦。但最後她寫歌賦情，雖然歌詞似為中國話， 胡人卻能瞭解詞裡的悲傷與憤怒；而蔡琰歸返漢營後，同胞也能瞭解她的歌，但 改為中國樂器彈奏，其中一支便是「胡笳十八拍」 (WW 209)。而值得注意的是， 〈法師〉中和解那一幕中，勇蘭的打扮已美國化，並告訴亭亭她決定定居美國。 相對於母親展現些微美國認同，〈一支胡笳曲〉中，湯亭亭則決定回中國去瞧一 瞧。小說便以母女和解及文化之間互能溝通的願景結束。 3. 結論 《女戰士》中第一代中國移民母親與生長於美國的女兒之間的糾葛，凸顯 出父權的介入與文化障礙造成的母女衝突。但書中母親既是父權代言人、壓迫 者，也是女性主義先驅、解放者，她孕育了女兒的想像力與編故事能力。雖然文 化認同差異增加了書中母女糾葛的複雜度，但愈發凸顯伊希葛黑所探討的母女傳 承之需求與障礙。女兒愛戀母親，她需要一個珍視自己社會及性愛身分的母親， 方能認同自己的女性身分。一旦母親被化約為母職，她傾注的愛將使女兒窒息、 癱瘓。《女戰士》中憤怒、悲傷的女兒透過激烈衝突與協商，終於取得自我空間， 也找回母親身上的女人。最後的母女和解顯現了溝通瞭解的可能，以及一種不完 全獨立、也不完全共生的母女關係。她們的關係最後是平等、可對話、互相啟發、 也互相哺育的。 而在某個意義上，探究《女戰士》中母女關係如何協商緊張衝突，也是思 考第二波女性主義如何能面對差異？女人之間的衝突是否會使姊妹情誼之核心 理想發生問題？如果《女戰士》可以為範例，答案應是樂觀的：協商的空間是永 遠存在的。 引用書目

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Kingston’s The Woman Warrior.” Textual Practice 6.1 (1992): 101-18.

Cheung, King Kok. “’Don’t Tell’: Imposed Silences in The Color Purple and The Woman Warrior.” PMLA 103.2 (1988): 162-74.

Chevigny, Bell Gale. “Daughters Writing: Toward a Theory of Women’s Biography.”

Feminist Studies 9.1 (1983): 79-102.

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Biography: East and West. Ed. Carol Ramelb. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1989.

231-37.

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Penguin, 1972.

Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie A. “The Metaphysics of Matrilinearism in Women’s Autobiography: Studies of Mead’s Blackberry Winter, Hellman’s Pentimento, Angelou’s I Know Why the Cages Bird Sings, and Kingston’s The Woman Warrior.” Women’s Autobiography: Essays in Criticism. Ed. Estelle C. Jelinek.

Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1980. 180-205.

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Macmillan, 1982.

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Garland, 1991. 119-34.

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Unwin, 1989.

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New York: Vintage, 1975.

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Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality. Ed. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon

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(*本論文為87年度國科會專題計劃NSC 87-2411-H-002-039之一部分，感謝王梅 春、鄧秋蓉兩為助理協助蒐集資料、並撰寫註解書目。)

1.

Annotated Bibliography of

Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing

Journal Articles

Augier, Valerie. “An Analysis of Surfacing by Margaret Atwood.”

Commonwealth Essays and Studies 11.2 (1989): 11-17.

Bartlett, Donald R. “'Fact' and Form in Surfacing.” University of Windsor

Review 17.1 (1982): 21-28.

Berryman, Charles. “Atwood's Narrative Quest.” Journal of Narrative

Technique 17.1 (1987): 51-56.

Notes that Atwood studied with Northrop Frye, and the narrative pattern of her Surfacing owes much to his description of the

archetypal forms of comedy and romance. The narrator of Surfacing

re-enacts a mythic pattern typical of classical mythology: the descent into the underworld, a meeting with the shadow of death, a madness to become one with nature, and a return to the surface marked by a new power and wholeness. To bridge the distance between primitive myth and realistic modern fiction, Atwood fulfills the basic patterns of comedy and romance. Entering the dark forest imitates A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but Atwood’s novel ends not in

celebrating marriage but merely in getting the lovers closer together. Like The Tempest, Surfacing also depicts a discovery of

real relations between chief characters and their parents, namely, a reunion between father and daughter. More importantly, Atwood express her aspiration for a rebirth of Canadian literature.

Bjerring, Nancy E. “The Problem of Language in Margaret Atwood's

Surfacing.” Queen's Quarterly 83 (1976): 597-612.

Points out that in Surfacing Atwood views language not as a means

of communication but as actually inhibiting, blocking and obscuring fundamental understanding. The dominant language in the novel, termed American by the narrator, renders human exchange superficial, perverts and debases art, and destroys nature. The narrator is not convinced by her father’s rational approaches to everything and repelled by her brother’s use of language for arbitrary moral distinction. Silence, the language chosen by her mother, still discomforts her. Yet the narrator at the end acquires a visionary language that can express fundamental meanings. It is a language of nature, of true art, and of essential meaning. With the illumination of this visionary language, the narrator knows who she is and what she must do.

Boyde, Melissa and Amanda Lawson. “Diving for the Red Pearl: Surfacing and Setting the Centre in Working Hot. ” Kunapipi 16.1 (1994): 119-24.

Brydon, Diana. “'The Thematic Ancestor': Joseph Conrad, Patrick White and Margaret Atwood.” World Literature Written in English 24.2 (1984): 386-397.

Points out that Conrad’s Heart of Darkness establishes many of the structures of apprehension and technique shared by Atwood and White, who yet begin to question these inherited structures. Conrad’s treatment of a man’s encounter with an alien continent that reveals to him his own darkness lies behind Atwood ’s and White’s presentation of female encounters with a wilderness that is both other and themselves. Yet their heroines come to terms with patriarchy and its contradictory messages about women. Both Atwood and White see that women’s experience of marginalization parallels that of the colonized. In addition, they also call into question the Western concepts of the subject.

Campbell, Josie P. “The Woman as Hero in Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.”

Mosaic 11.3 (1978): 17-28.

Regards Surfacing both as “a sort of psychological thriller, where

the protagonist searches for or comes in conflict with [her] fragmented self which appears as a ghost ” (17-18), and as “a creative or poetic ‘meta-criticism’” (19) of Joseph Campell’s theories in The

Hero with a Thousand Faces and Primitive Mythology. The protagonist ’s

quest for her missing father leads finally to the mysterious realm of the self where the reintegration of her two selves, head and feeling, becomes possible. Campbell argues that Surfacing does not

end in reinforcing a stereotypical relationship between men and women. Rather, Atwood has her heroine undergo an experience of a

rite de passage, from girlhood to womanhood while her lover, Joe,

is necessary merely in a functionary way. Stereotypical sexual roles are reversed to some extent. What Atwood dramatizes is a woman’s enormous capacity to confront and to conquer the ghosts of her psyche.

Cederstrom, Lorelei. “The Regeneration of Time in Atwood's Surfacing.”

Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal Revue d'Etudes sur la Femme 6.2

(1981): 24-37.

Contends that Atwood reveals in Surfacing how to overcome alienation

from self and from the natural world by establishing a new view of time, history and progress. The narrator overcomes the alienation as she restores a primitive view that life is a part of a timeless cosmic cycle. In fact, the relationship of the narrator to the

natural world is a symbol of her development of a healthy relationship to the feminine unconsciousness. The psychological development of the narrator moves from rejection of the feminine unconscious to recognition of its power. At the end, she achieves a state in which conscious and unconscious have interpenetrated.

Clark, Meera T. “Margaret Atwood's Surfacing: Language, Logic, and the Art of Fiction.” Modern Language Studies 13.3 (1983): 3-15. Explores the relationship of language to logic, to external reality and to writing in Surfacing. Atwood holds “the notion that language

possesses an autonomy which far from reflecting an objective, external reality, actually creates a reality which is far more powerful, and which is inextricably linked both to our destruction and creative survival” (3). The paradigm Atwood employs to explore the relation of language and reality is to present so-called facts while subverting and exposing them as fiction. Surfacing

demonstrates the capacity of language to destroy external reality and create a new one, which is more valid and truer to inner experience.

Davidson, Arnold E. and Cathy N. Davidson. “The Anatomy of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.” Ariel 10.3 (1979): 38-54.

Studies how Atwood uses the archetypal mythic quest of romance, theorized by Northrop Frye, in order to explore contemporary questions, especially that of how a woman both prevents herself from becoming the shining surface required by society for women and finds an identity in an alienating world. Returning to her childhood home, the narrator is isolated from the perturbing aspects of her present world. Gradually, she comes to recognize that all her life she “has been pressured to become a proper woman, proper to be determined by others” (46). Like male heroes of romance, the protagonist passes through the stage of enlightenment. Nevertheless, Atwood departs from the archetypal romance pattern by making the narrator realize that her success in the mythic quest would not elicit universal acclaim. Instead, what she had learned must be protected and partly hidden when she returns to society.

Davidson, Cathy N. “Chopin and Atwood: Woman Drowning, Woman Surfacing.”

KCN 1.3 (1975-76): 6-10.

Declaire, Jacques. “Enclosure and Disclosure in Surfacing by Margaret Atwood.” Commonwealth Essays and Studies 11.2 (1989): 18-23.

Commonwealth Essays and Studies 11.2 (1989): 1-10.

Points out that Surfacing was published in a decade when all that

had gone needed revising and when authority was rejected in all its forms, particularly the authority of the father. The narrator’s backward journey and search for the father seems to contradict that tendency. Nevertheless, the narrator comes to realize her own complicity in being victimized by men and then begins to reject men. After this backward journey, her feminine identity is restored. Besides feminism, Surfacing is also concerned with nationalism for

the heroine’s search for self implies the struggle of Canadian culture for self-determination.

Ewell, Barbara C. “The Language of Alienation in Margaret Atwood's

Surfacing.” The Centennial Review 25.2 (1981): 185-202.

Argues that Atwood explores how the narrowly rational language of modern technological society fails to account for the intricate mysteries of human existence. Unable to fit the language to her experience, the narrator of Surfacing thus alters her experience to

fit that language, allowing that language to redefine her own past only in a partial way. Yet she comes to recognize that language could invalidate and alienate human experience and finally succeeds in finding alternatives to express her eventual experience of wholeness. In addition, Surfacing exposes the disturbing feature

of language— its categorizing power, whose enforcement of arbitrary distinction is a basis of control.

Garebian, Keith. “Surfacing: Apocalyptic Ghost Story.” Mosaic 9.3 (1976): 1-9.

Argues that the ghosts in Surfacing “are a vehicle to connect mixed

literary modes and to integrate questions about innocence and guilt, alienation and harmony, fragmentation and wholeness into an adventure” (1) which takes the form of a quest that turns out to be the apocalypse of the heroine ’s mind and spirit. Victimization is the larger theme associated with the questions of fragmentation, guilt, and alienation. The heroine is locked into a preoccupation with the victim motif since she fails to become an ex-victim or to rebel against the human world that victimizes her. More interestingly, Garebian contends that the heroine’s sanity remains questionable. Believing in madness as a form of intensification of personality, the protagonist tends to color events encountered with her own special morbidity. Atwood’s heroine finally even identifies herself with nature and animals, feeling “that her true form and identity are best left concealed from other humans” (7).

German, Sandra K. “Surfacing: The Inevitable Rise of the Women of Color Quilters' Network.” Uncoverings: Research Papers of the American

Quilt Study Group 14 (1993): 137-68.

Gerson, Carole. “Margaret Atwood and Quebec: A Footnote on Surfacing.”

Studies in Canadian Literature 1 (1976): 115-19.

Goldie, Terry. “Folklore, Popular Culture and Individuation in Surfacing and The Diviners.” Canadian Literature 104 (1985): 95-108.

Explores the attitudes of the narrators of Surfacing and The Diviners

toward mass culture and popular culture and the effects of both cultures on the individuation of the protagonists. Goldie distinguishes popular culture from mass culture as follows: “Mass culture is that disseminated through the mass media. Popular culture, then, is that which, while not disseminated through the mass media, is shaped by it and by contemporary life in general” (96). That Surfacing completely rejects both mass and popular culture is

manifest in its attitude toward photography, which is always something to be feared. Yet The Diviners, in which photography

becomes a useful part in the process of self-discovering and of socialization, suggests that some aspects of popular culture must be accepted.

Granofsky, Ronald. “Fairy-Tale Morphology in Margaret Atwood's

Surfacing.” Mosaic 23.4 (1990): 51-65.

Studying Surfacing in terms of Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale, Granofsky maintains that on the one hand, the structure

of the novel conforms surprisingly to fairy-tale morphology and on the other, it functions to subvert that form. Atwood ’s underlying concern is with the way the fairy-tale structure contributed to the female self-image. By utilizing and parodying the general fairy-tale pattern, Atwood succeeds in exposing “the passivity of the typical heroine and her willing connivance in her own victimization” (59). The quest of her protagonist is a process to achieve maturation, a process that completes personal fulfillment through her growing understanding of her cultural conditioning in a world inimical to female independence. Surfacing explores how the complex structures

of society entrap women, forestalling their development and maturation.

Harrison, James. “The 20,000,000 Solitudes of Surfacing.” Dalhousie

Review 59 (1979): 74-81.

Applicata 2 (1973): 3-71.

Hinz, Evelyn J. “The Religious Roots of the Feminine Identity Issue: Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel and Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.” Journal of Canadian Studies; Revue d'Etudes Canadiennes

22.1 (1987): 17-31.

Argues that Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and Margaret Laurence’s The

Stone Angel, extremely concerned with the relation between women’s

identity and religious issues, question the feminist contention that women need to expose the sexual politics inherent in the Bible and to construct a new theology helpful for liberating women. Both works emphasize the need for religious support systems and locate the contemporary sexism and alienation in the decadence of traditional religious symbolism and authority. The Judaeo-Christian tradition

per se never causes women’s oppression. For Atwood and Laurence, the

most problematic feature for women, argues Hinz, is the monotheist character and claim to uniqueness of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

Hinz, Evelyn J. and John J. Teunissen. “Surfacing: Margaret Atwood's ‘Nymph Complaining.’” Contemporary Literature 20 (1979): 221-36. Suggests that Atwood’s Surfacing probably interprets Marvell’s “A Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn ” for both works involve the theme of Mater Dolorosa. Atwood’s heroine is motivated by maternal grief, and her concern over the disappearance of her father turns out to be a projection and transference of her suffering from divorce and separation from her child. Nonetheless, all the memories about marriage, divorce, and custody of her child are invented to protect her from a past traumatic experience— abortion. It is not simply the death of the fetus that torments her; this abortion in fact demonstrates “that she has gone against nature, attempted to thwart the natural cycle” (226). The protagonist determines to redeem herself by conceiving another child, but this replacement child is regarded by her as an animal. In this manner, she avenges herself against her false lover who persuaded her to have the abortion. Yet in viewing the child as an animal, the narrator displays the most primitive form of the Great Mother.

Huggan, Graham. “Resisting the Map as Metaphor: A Comparison of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing and Janet Frame's Scented Gardens for the Blind .” Kunapipi 11.3 (1989): 5-15.

Explores the reaction against the strategies of reduction and restriction implicit in the notion of mapping in Margaret Atwood’s

Surfacing and Janet Frame’s Scented Gardens for the Blind. The

strategies— designation, division, and exclusion. In Scented

Gardens for the Blind, Frame calls into question the notion of

cognitive mapping. Both writers also examine the close connection between linguistic definition and social conformity. For them, language is a codified communication system, which is reductive and imprecise. That the ending in both novels is left in suspense demonstrates again the avoidance of the tyranny of definition.

Irvine, Lorna. “Surfacing, Surviving, Surpassing: Canada's Women Writers.” Journal of Popular Culture 15.3 (1981): 70-79.

James, William C. “Atwood's Surfacing.” Canadian Literature 91 (1981): 174-181.

Jolly, Roslyn. “Transformations of Caliban and Ariel: Imagination and Language in David Malouf, Margaret Atwood and Seamus Heaney. ” World

Literature Written in English 26.2 (1986): 295-330.

King, Bruce. “Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.” Journal of Commonwealth

Literature 12.1 (1977): 23-32.

Regards Surfacing as “representative of the modern search for

authenticity and wholeness through rediscovery of the past, including the primitive” (26). To solve her problems and the problem of modern life, the narrator returns to the pre-historic, prelogical mind of early man and the mysteries of nature, but her vision becomes increasing that of an animal or of some savage and she ends in a total alienation, hating human beings. The narrator’s search for her missing father is also symbolic of a quest for a Canadian national cultural identity in the past, a quest aiming at replacing the rootless, mechanized culture of urban North America. To the end of the novel, Joe seems to offer some sort of hope of the future in the machine age, but it is the narrator’s vision and not Atwood’s. Joe in fact could not carry such symbolic weight. King concludes that Atwood provides in her lyric poetry and Surfacing only simplistic

views of social roles, personalities, and emotions.

Klovan, Peter. “'They Are Out of Reach Now': The Family Motif in Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.” Essays on Canadian Writing 33 (1986): 1-28.

Argues that in Surfacing, Atwood examines individual personality

disorders as a malfunction of an unbreakable continuum between the family and its members. The salvation of the narrator could take place only when she accepts the essential continuity between herself and her family. Yet her family, isolated by geography, language, and religion from the surrounding community, fails to prepare her

for the demands of everyday society. The narrator internalizes the only role presented to her— that of a withdrawn and passive introvert. Klovan concludes that the narrator’s achievement in finding an identity is much more ambiguous than her most appreciate critics although she has replaced her unhealthy obsession with her parents with a partial understanding of them and has moved beyond fear of power to an awareness of its necessity.

Kokotailo, Philip. “Form in Atwood's Surfacing: Toward a Synthesis of Critical Opinion.” Studies in Canadian Literature; Etude en

Litterature Canadienne 8.2 (1983): 155-165.

Demands that Surfacing be read as a fusion of modern and postmodern

literary forms in order to terminate the critical controversy of whether its concluding resolution is affirmative or not. Surfacing,

referred to as “a collage of narration, observation, speculation, and recollection” (159), partakes of the modern and postmodern characteristics of form identified by Frank Davey. In the course of the novel, Atwood traces the demise of controlled and integrated order that the narrator has imposed on the reality of her own life. As the narrator recognizes there is no such order, as she exorcises her false selves, she reaches a resolution that is a starting point.

Lane, Richard. “Anti-Panoptical Narrative Structures in Two Novels by Margaret Atwood.” Commonwealth Essays and Studies 16.1 (1993): 63-69.

McLay, Catherine. “The Divided Self: Theme and Pattern in Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.” Journal of Canadian Fiction 4.1 (1975): 82-95.

Points out that Surfacing probes the mind of the heroine, in

particular her search for a psychic home and for satisfying personal relationships. The dislocation in human relations marks the narrator’s past and present. The failure to communicate through language widens separation between self and others. The narrator also suffers from opposition between reason and emotion, mind and body. Yet at the end of the novel, reason is united with emotion, mind with body; others are no longer seen as enemy of self. The narrator’s final return to society affirms her need to be human and to live with other human beings.

Miller, Hugh. “Surfacing to no purpose: Margaret Atwood's Apparent Survival.” Antigonish Review 24 (1976): 59-61.

Nagamine, Ayako Tuskamoto. “Surfacing.” Melville Society Extracts 94 (1993): 11.

Onley, Gloria. “Margaret Atwood: Surfacing in the Interests of Survival. ”

West Coast Review 7.3 (1973): 51-54.

Potter, Nick. “Tropics of Identity in Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.”

Swansea Review 1994: 462-69.

Probyn, Clive. “Surfacing and Falling into Matter: Johnson, Swift, Disgust, and Beyond.” Mattoid 48 (1994): 37-43.

Quigley, Theresia. “Surfacing: A Critical Study.” Antigonish Review 34 (1978): 77-87.

Regards Surfacing as a psychological novel which attempts to trace

a young woman’s retreat from a technologically materialistic society. Mechanized civilization and its urban environment, which cause the breakdown of the narrator’s self-awareness and her inability to feel anything sincerely and deeply, are condemned. This machine mentality degrades and devalues intuitive feeling, poetic knowledge, feminine values, nature and motherhood. Atwood’s abhorrence of this mechanized world is further emphasized by her condemnation of Americans who are portrayed as the destroyer of nature, wanton killer, insatiable beast.

Robinson, Sally. “The 'Anti-logos weapon': Multiplicity in Women's Texts.” Contemporary Literature 29.1 (1988): 105-124.

Approaches Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, Joanna Russ’s The Female Man and Bertha Harris’s Lover in terms of the discourses of Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva on language, heterogeneity and multiplicity.

Surfacing explores heterogeneity and multiplicity through its

representation of a female metamorphosis. Discovering that symbolic language privileges unity and represses female experience, the protagonist hopes to find an other language, which is presymbolic and grants female specificity. Yet her rejection of the phallocentric systems of signification is merely an escape. The tone and mood of the novel is characterized by negation, and Atwood fails to create a viable space from which her protagonist can speak her desire, experience, and self. Surfacing returns in the end to

phallocentric unity as the narrator comes back to civilization. On the contrary, The Female Man and Lover disrupt conventional narrative

patterns to explore freely what might be called a “feminine” space.

Rocard, Marcienne. “Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and Alma Luz Villanueva's The Ultraviolet Sky: The Spiritual Journeys of Two Women Artists: One Anglo-Canadian and One Mexican American.” Recherches Anglaises

et Nord Americaines 24 (1991): 155-61.

---. “Approche gothique du paysage canadien: 'Death by Landscape' de Margaret Atwood.” Caliban 33 (1996): 147-56.

Roseberg, Jerome. “Woman as Everyman in Atwood's Surfacing: Some Observations on the End of the Novel. ” Studies in Canadian Literature 3 (1978): 127-32.

Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. “Nancy Drew as Shaman: Atwood's Surfacing.”

Canadian Literature 84 (1980): 7-17.

Maintains that Surfacing examines three different rituals:

Christianization, Americanization, and Indian shamanism. It is only Indian shamanism which succeeds. The narrator ’s diving and surfacing is a shamanistic ritual of descent and return. Her shamanic initiation is completed as she acquires the power to cope with the menace and damage brought about by technological America. The narrator’s anticipated return to society is structurally necessary to complete her personal quest and Canada ’s quest— to show her ability to confront the menace rendered by Americanization.

---. “’A Singing Spirit’: Female Rites of Passage, in Klee Wyck, Surfacing, and The Diviners.” Atlantis 4.1 (1978): 86-94.

Rubenstein, Roberta. “Surfacing: Margaret Atwood's Journey to the Interior.” Modern Fiction Studies 22 (1976): 387-99.

Points out that Surfacing synthesizes a number of motifs that have

dominated Atwood’s previous work (her six volumes of poetry and

Survival): the elusiveness and variety of language; the continuum

between human and animal, human being and nature; the significance of one’s heritage; the search for a location in both time and place; the brutalizations and victimizations of love; drowning and surviving. The narrator’s quest for her father represents her confrontation with her true self. Atwood utilizes the destroyed fetus not merely to suggest the narrator ’s guilt and buried self. It also serves as a “metaphor for the self-destructive disease of contemporary life, and the incomplete development of the self ” (394). At the end of the journey, the narrator has rejoined the severed halves of her being and learned to accept life as it is.

Sacken, Jeanne P. “George Sand, Kate Chopin, Margaret Atwood, and the Redefinition of Self.” Postscript 2 (1985): 19-28.

Surfacing.” The Centennial Review 18 (1974): 319-37.

Argues that Surfacing is not about the victimization of women but

about victimization of all mankind; it is a novel “about mortality, the unacceptable fact of one’s own death, the even more unacceptable deaths of others” (319). The narrator of Surfacing could not accept the deaths of her parents. Her love for them turns to hate as they die. The narrator regards their deaths as suicides, as their choice to abandon her. In the course of the novel, the narrator attempts to break time barriers that separate the living from the dead; in other words, she desires resurrection. But at the end, she regrets that she could not enter her parents’ time and realizes that there is no resurrection. In addition, fear of not being alive haunts the narrator.

Scott, M. Nelia. “Linguistic Features of Literary Theme: Some Halliday-Type Principles Applied to Surfacing (Margaret Atwood,

1972).” Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of Language and Literature 3.7 (1982): 31-42.

Singh, Sushila. “Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood: Two Faces of the New World Feminism.” Panjab University Research Bulletin (Arts) 18.1 (1987): 83-93.

Argues that Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood represent two major faces of women’s literature: feminine realism and female self-analysis. Oates’s Them focuses on stark realities and how women are victimized in the violent milieu of contemporary America. Economic factors are the determining roots of its characters. Surfacing deals

with many basic concerns of feminine life, namely, marriage, divorce and abortion. Yet the theme of Atwood ’s novel is the exploration of the feminine self through the psychic journey into one ’s own interior. Despite their different concerns, Atwood and Oates offer a new understanding of the women condition in Canada and America.

Smith, Barbara Herrnstein. “Surfacing from the Deep.” PTL: A Journal

for Descriptive Poetics and Theory 2 (1977): 151-82.

Sullivan, Rosemary. “Surfacing and Deliverance.” Canadian Literature 67 (1976): 6-20.

Argues that although both Surfacing and Deliverance explore man’s

relationship to nature, Atwood and Dickey are fundamentally opposed in the discoveries their characters make about nature and the resolutions to which these discoveries lead. For both authors, a literal and metaphoric return to nature, which is also a penetration into a previously unknown or repressed self, recovers the wholeness

of self. To achieve this end, Dickey turns to a cult of sensation while Atwood appeals to moral self-castigation. In Deliverance,

return to nature means the release of the murderous capacity of the self which is experienced as an exhilarating freedom. In Surfacing,

however, nature becomes a forum for moral self-scrutiny. The biggest difference between the two authors lies in their attitude toward power: Atwood provides a vision of the sacredness of the natural world, into which man can enter by abandoning his will to control; by contrast, Dickey’s nature is ;where man can test not only his self-control but his ability to bring others under the control of his will.

Thomas, Sue. “Mythic Reconception and the Mother/Daughter Relationship in Margaret Atwood's 'Surfacing.'” ARIEL 19.2 (1988): 73-85.

Explores how Atwood reconceives grail motifs in feminist terms to provide a mythological context for the central mother/daughter relationship and the narrator’s senses of maternal inadequacy and guilt. The narrator’s mother is presented as successful life-giver, woman transformed to mother, with all the status and fulfillment maternity may provide. In contrast, the narrator, through her abortion, fails in her life-giving, reproductive capacities associated with motherhood. Yet with her second pregnancy, the narrator accepts her mother’s legacy in taking on the role of mother. In the journey, she goes through a process of emerging restoration to spiritual health and reproductive vitality.

Wilt, Judith. “Steamboat Surfacing: Scott and the English Novelists.”

Nineteenth Century Literature 35.4 (1981): 459-486.

Withim, Philip. “'Packing It in Salt': Form in Atwood's Surfacing.” CEA

Critic: An Official Journal of the College English Association 50.1

(1987): 67-73.

Woodcock, George. “Surfacing to Survive: Notes of the Recent Atwood.”

Ariel 4.3 (1973): 16-28.

Argues that Surfacing and Survival “developed in more discursive

forms the personal ethic, linked to a personal poetic” (17), which emanates from Atwood’s earlier verses. Both works concern survival and how Canada is the victim of a sickness of colonialism. Survival

is a work of self-examination, attempting to reduce to rational terms the emotions that have emerged from Atwood ’s poetry. In Surfacing, these emotions are inscribed in the lineaments of myth.

Baer, Elizabeth R. “Pilgrimage Inward: Quest and Fairy Tale Motifs in

Surfacing.” Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms. Ed. Kathryn Van

Spanckeren, Jan Garden Castro, and Sandra M. Gilbert. Carbondale : So. Illinois UP, 1988. 24-34.

Christ, Carol P. “Refusing to Be Victim: Margaret Atwood.” Diving Deep

and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest. Boston: Beacon,

1980. 41-55.

Argues that in Surfacing the protagonist’s search for her father is

paralleled by an internal search to discover how she has lost the ability to feel. She recuperates this ability only when she confronts the center of her pain— her betrayal by the first man she loved. Before that, the protagonist always accuses others of having hurt her while remaining blind to her power to hurt others. She feels victimized by men just as Canada is victimized by Americans. By renouncing the fictitious memories that sustain her delusions of innocence and powerlessness, Atwood’s protagonist gains a new power, by which she is no longer a victim and by which she senses the great powers of the universe of life and death. Although Atwood leaves open the question of how her protagonist’s quest can be integrated with the social quest, Surfacing, emphasizes Christ, has offered

women “alternatives to patriarchal notions of power that can aid their struggle to change the social world” (50).

Cluett, Robert. “Surface Structures: The Syntactic Profile of

Surfacing.” Margaret Atwood: Language, Text, and System. Ed.

Sherrill E. Grace and Lorraine Weir. Vancouver : U of British Columbia P, 1983. 67-90.

Studies the syntax of Surfacing in terms of the computerized

syntactic profiles from the York Computer Inventory of Prose Style. By comparing with the syntactic profiles of Morley Callaghan’s A

Native Argosy and Strange Fugitive, Robertson Davies’s Fifth Business, Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel, and Leonard Cohen’s The Favorite Game, Cluett argues that the syntactic profile of Surfacing is unique not only in the Atwood canon but in all twenty

century fiction. Short clauses, utter eschewing of modifying words, pronominality, clause-end additions are the properties of the syntax of Surfacing. Its extraordinary appositional quality in particular

embodies a process of discovery, just as the novel itself is concerned with self-discovery.

Donalson, Mara E. “Woman as Hero in Margaret Atwood's Surfacing and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior.” Heroines of Popular Culture.