- 學位論文
公校男童與帝國：《蒼蠅王》的政治化閱讀
Public Schoolboys and Empire: A Politicized Reading of Lord of the Flies
摘要
本論文結合近代英國文學與文化傳統，探折高汀（William Golding）名作《蒼蠅王》中的性別與國族政治面向。此書歷來屢被視為一部呈現普遍人性善惡之作，然其中主人翁之公校男童（public schoolboys），實為英國社會自以十九世紀以來極其重要的菁英典型，在文學作品當中，更往往是該國社會與殖民事業的領袖。本論文試圖論證《蒼蠅王》源出「公校男童小說」次文類，一方面符應其習例與人物塑造模式，一方面也反映了廿世紀大英帝國崩解後的文化與社會關切。 論文第一章考察作品之於「公校男童小說」的傳承關係，指出其中之兩大男童領袖典型在《蒼蠅王》中並行出現，互為鮮明對比；第二章著重討論作品中兩派對立男童之性別與性相建構，不僅凸顯「紳士」與「軍官」大相逕庭的男子氣概，也顯露了帝國中心對於殖民事業不同層次的說辭；第三章聚焦在兩方陣營競逐作為後殖民時代英國領導階層的無解辯證，簡言之，一方過度倚賴模倣帝國巓峰期之先行者，以致在見證其價值破產之後無能處理變局，另一方雖可望透過改革與自我改造掌握權力，但卻可能因手段過度基進而無法被想像理解為「英國人」。整體而言，《蒼蠅王》與二次戰後英國的政治、文化與社會互動至為密切，與帝國主義意識型態的轇轕亦十分深遠，雖非概括承受，但亦無法化約為全然絕對的拒斥。
並列摘要
The thesis reads Lord of Flies in the context of modern Britain’s imperial culture and politics. I argue that the figure of public schoolboy appearing in Lord of the Flies ought not be taken hastily as incidental inventions of William Golding, as critics usually do, but rather a crucial icon of would-be national leaders in British literature and popular culture for more than two hundred years. The novel’s shares, substantially, its literary predecessors’ response to British imperialist business. And whereas their Victorian and Edwardian counterparts tend to portray the public schoolboys as triumphant conquerors of nature and men of color around the world, those in Lord of the Flies are to confront incessant challenges and dilemmas, and find themselves seemingly nowhere to move on. It is a public schoolboy story, therefore, not only inseparable to its preceding literary legacy, but also highly reflective of its own times. The first chapter examines the novel’s indebtedness to the British public schoolboy story tradition, especially main generic conventions and prototypes of boy-heroes. The second chapter scrutinizes the constructions of genders and sexualities in Lord of the Flies, looking into how the contrasting images of gentleman and soldier generate competing discourses of ideal British elites. The third chapter further interrogates the problematics of the rivaling camps in Lord of the Flies as probable leading classes of their nation. Simply put, while those imitative heirs of the British mainstream recurrently find their goal of maintaining a glorious status of their nation out of reach, those who belong to the radical side appear to be more likely to invigorate themselves and realize the same goal but in the meantime risk slanting to savagery, supposedly the antithesis of British civility. Golding’s vision of ideal leaders in postcolonial Britain is split, troubled, indeterminate, and patently self-contradictory.