The Ballad of the Sad Café: A Battle Hymn of an Androgyne

「傷心咖啡店之歌」：雙性人的戰歌

許惠芬(Hsu, Hui-fen)

《應用語文學報》 1期 (2014/03) Pp. 143-154

https://doi.org/10.6906/JAL.201403_(1).0008

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenge of the androgynous female protagonist to patriarchal hegemony in The Ballad of the Sad Café. This character represents the feminist rejection of the patriarchal view of an essential womanhood. The target of feminist critique is the sexual binarism of masculine/feminine and the consequent gender stratification of culture/nature and public/domestic in the patriarchal society. The main contents of this paper are divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the poststructuralist theory on the constructed human subjectivity, which is appropriated in feminist discourses to invalidate the patriarchal ideology. The perception of the non-fixed female subjectivity serves to subvert the binary opposition of the masculine and feminine. Amelia the androgyne, biologically a female but mentally a male, is proven to be the utopian state of being to overthrow the patriarchal domination. Undauntedly, she crosses the sexual boundary and defies the traditional definition of woman. Her battle hymn pervades the café she creates, reflecting the universal yearning for sexual equality.

關鍵字

poststructuralist ； subjectivity ； androgyne ； patriarchal ； sexuality ； binary

並列摘要

本論文主要探討的議題，是美國小說「傷心咖啡店之歌」中的女主角所具備的雙性特質，如何挑戰男性霸權文化。此角色亦代表女性主義對父權所定義的女性本質之質疑。女性主義論述所攻擊的目標，在於性別的二元對立觀，如男性特質／女性特質，及因此所衍生的一切對立論，如文化／自然，外界／家庭等具階級意識的觀念。正文主要分兩部分。第一部分著墨於後結構主義對主體建構性的看法，再推及女性主義如何和此理論結合，推翻父系意識形態的合法性，因為非固定女性主體的觀念能夠顛覆男女性別的二元對立。書中女主角具雙性特質，生理上是女性，但心理上是男性。雌雄同體的她是烏托邦式的生命存在體，適足以推翻父權的統治。她無畏的跨越性別藩籬，對抗傳統婦女的角色定位。她的戰歌瀰漫於她所創建的咖啡館中，反映的是人類對性別平等的共同渴求。

並列關鍵字

後結構主義 ； 主體 ； 雌雄同體 ； 父權 ； 性別 ； 二元對立