Desiring Brotherhood-Alternative Masculinities and a Critique of the American Empire in Carson McCullers's ＂Reflections in a Golden Eye＂

慾望袍澤：卡森．麥可考勒絲《金眼的反射》中的另類陽剛氣質與對美帝的批判

許甄倚(Jen-Yi Hsu)

《歐美研究》 45卷3期 (2015/09) Pp. 409-444

https://doi.org/10.7015/JEAS.201509_45(3).0003

摘要

本文探討卡森．麥可考勒絲的第二本小說《金眼的反射》。此書於1941年出版時，由於處理同性戀題材及一些在當時被認為病態的心理症候，評論家多傾向將此書閱讀為美國南方歌德式書寫的典型代表。本文嘗試跳脫以南方區域主義來閱讀麥可考勒絲的舊典範，指出作為南方作家的她，作品中其實有很多跨國想像。以《金眼的反射》為例，小說中有個邊緣角色是菲律賓男僕，這個角色的存在，指出了麥可考勒絲對於美國在東亞擴張野心的察覺。小說的場景是軍營，然而麥可考勒絲的主要男性角色卻是溢出常態性別框架的詭態人物，呈現出的性別氣質卻是擁抱閹割及另類性的非常模陽剛，故論文主張從性向來管窺及拆解異性戀父權的正當性及美國國族主義的霸權性。小說批判主流陽剛的壓迫性、指出恐同的霸權陽剛，是與異性戀父權及帝國雄風崇拜牽連在一起的，對父權恐同與帝國主義之間相互勾連的洞悉力，顯示出麥可考勒絲的慧眼獨具，她對另類陽剛氣質的大膽描繪及探索，也成就了令人佩服的藝術家勇氣。

關鍵字

卡森．麥可考勒絲 ； 《金眼的反射》 ； 同性戀 ； 國族主義 ； 陽剛氣質

並列摘要

This paper examines Carson McCullers's second novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye, a strange tale that received accusations of morbidity when it was published in 1941. Because of the novel's shocking homosexual theme, critics tend to read it as McCullers's inheritance of the Gothic school of southern writing. However, I argue that this paradigmatic use of southern regionalism as the singular model to interpret her novel is inadequate and ignores the transnational imaginary of the story. One of the essential clues to McCullers's awareness of the imperialist expansion of U.S. global power is the strange presence of the Filipino houseboy, who alerts us to the more disturbing aspects of American invasions into the international sphere. Set in a traditionally male domain of a military post, the novel explores the tensions and ambivalence inherent in a patriarchal culture's reification of manhood. McCullers turns the army into a grotesque site of alternative masculinities and seething homoeroticism. Far from a discrete entity that has nothing to do with the political and the national, sexuality, I will show, is in fact a powerful critical lens through which we can peer into the ideological mechanism that produces meaning in a particular cultural moment of U.S. imperialist expansion. In her daring portrayal of masculinities that embrace castration and alterity, McCullers proves herself a courageous artist with a discerning eye for the oppressive nature of hegemonic masculinity and its affiliations with heteropatriarchy and imperial nationhood.

並列關鍵字

Carson McCullers ； Reflections in a Golden Eye ； homosexuality ； nationalism ； masculinity

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