Woman-to-Woman Relationships in Olive Schreiner's From Man to Man

This essay examines the sister narrative in Olive Schreiner's From Man to Man (1926), looking at the ways in which Schreiner presents a loose sibling tie and characterizes female gossips as tricksters in her mapping of woman-to-woman relationships. Sisterhood, in its broadest sense, may encompass women's relative and relational kinship bonds. By reading From Man to Man in tandem with Christina Rossetti's ＂Goblin Market＂ (1862), a classic of Victorian biological sisterhood, the essay argues that Schreiner's portrayal of the sister bond fails to revive the mutual redemption of blood sisters as idealized in the Lizzie-Laura pair in ＂Goblin Market.＂ In a similar vein, by analyzing the trope of gossip (or gossipmonger) as trickster to look at female friendship in the novel, the essay contends that Schreiner equally lacks faith in alliances between female friends, a form of bonding socially sanctioned to regulate women's femininity based on Victorian gender norms leading to the ultimate embracing of heterosexual love and marriage. Both strategies, the essay posits, reveal Schreiner's inability to put the finishing touches on her ideal of woman-to-woman relationships, aligning From Man to Man, her unfinished life's work, with other like-minded works by New Woman writers of the time characterized by despairing parameters of women's solidarity.

關鍵字

Olive Schreiner ； From Man to Man ；＂Goblin Market＂； trickster ； gossip ； sisterhood

並列摘要

本文研究奧莉芙．謝瑞納（Olive Schreiner）的小說《人與人之間》（From Man to Man）裡的姊妹敘事，探討謝瑞納如何透過疏離的姊妹情誼以及喜好道人長短的女性友人來描述女人與女人之間的關係。廣義而言，姊妹情誼包含了具有血緣關係的親姐妹情誼以及非親屬之間的女性友誼。透過將《人與人之間》與維多利亞時期姐妹情誼的典範之作，克莉斯汀娜．羅塞提（Christina Rossetti）的《精靈市集》（＂Goblin Market＂）做串聯閱讀，本論文指出謝瑞納無法在《人與人之間》裡重現《精靈市集》中親姊妹之間互相救贖的理想情境。同樣地，藉由分析小說裡將八卦的女性友人比喻成狡黠者，本文認為謝瑞納對於女性友誼也缺乏信心，因為這種女性聯結在維多利亞時期的性別制約裡是被社會允許，用來規範女性的陰柔特質，並以達到異性戀及婚姻為最終目標。藉此，本論文意圖顯示謝瑞納無法為她筆下理想的女人與女人關係做最後的完筆，因而留下她畢竟其生卻未完成的遺作。如同該時期其他新女性作品一樣，《人與人之間》對於女性友好同盟的願景充滿了失望之情。