王爾德的《溫德米爾夫人的扇子》與《無足輕重的女人》中維多利亞時期之新母親形象

Abstract

十九世紀時，王爾德創造了兩個與眾不同的母親角色：《溫夫人的扇子》中的歐琳太太以及《無足輕重的女人》中的亞伯納太太。在維多利亞時期，「家中的天使」是維多利亞社會中廣為人知的一個完美女性典範。儘管在當代社會中，順從、溫柔且為了家庭犧牲自己的母親角色是大家所熟悉的，王爾德卻選擇寫出了女性的其他面向，展現出獨立自主且勇敢的母親角色。更特別的是，他的這兩個母親角色都是墮落的女人：歐琳太太年輕時拋家棄女，亞伯納太太則是年輕時未婚懷孕。很多評論家認為王爾德筆下的這種狂野且大膽的角色，旨在顛覆整個傳統社會中的家庭價值觀。但是，王爾德是否真的想要顛覆傳統，又或者，他只是嘗試要為女性拓展另一個視野？帶著這樣的問題來思維，本篇論文總共分成五個部分以討論這個議題。除了緒論以及結論，本論文有三個主要章節。第一章探討了維多利亞時期女性的背景，第二章分析劇本中母親與孩子之間的關係，第三章則是研究這兩個母親角色的個人性來深入分析王爾德所創造出的不同於維多利亞時期的新母親形象，並證明他用這兩個母親角色對於當時代根深柢固的家庭結構引起一場微小的革命，為當時代女性提供了一個出口。不單如此，他劇中的角色們，即便挪到了現在這個世代，也還是展現了另類且特別的母親形象。In the 19th century, Oscar Wilde created twoextraordinary mother characters in his two plays: Mrs. Erlynne in Lady Windermere’s Fan and Mrs. Arbuthnot in A Woman of No Importance. In the Victorian age, “Angel in the house” was a perfect icon and was familiar to the women in the Victorian society. Nevertheless, Oscar Wilde, instead of portraying the Victorian stereotype of mother images that are tender, submissive and self-sacrificing in his works, revealed other dimensions of women that are brave and independent with his two fallen women characters. Many critics consider that Wilde was trying to deconstruct the norm of the society by writing these bold and wild women characters. However, did Wilde really intend to subvert the family structure? Or did he just broaden the horizon of the women in the Victorian age? In order to discuss this question, this thesis is divided into five parts. Excluding introduction and conclusion, there are three main chapters. Chapter One discusses the historical background of the Victorian women, Chapter Two observes the mother-child relationship in the plays and Chapter Three analyzes the mother characters’ individual thoughts to reveal the new mother image that Wilde created in his plays in the hope to prove that Wilde used his mother characters to raise a micro revolution to the conventional family structure, so as to provide an exit for the women not only in his time, but also for today.