父親的故鄉與女兒的自我認同:移動與跨越

Father’s Hometown and Daughter’s Self-Identity: Moving and Crossing-over

張淑雅(Shu-Ya Chang)

指導教授 ： 黃如瑩

國立臺北科技大學/人文與社會科學學院/應用英文系碩士班/碩士(2014年)

https://doi.org/10.6841/NTUT.2014.00206

摘要

本篇論文主要在探討女性如何從旅行找到自我，並且討論父親及女兒的關係如何影響女性的自我定位。本文的主要架構是建立在三本女性旅行的故事，第一個故事是席慕蓉的《金色的馬鞍》，第二部作品為約翰娜席柏（Johanna Schipper）的《出生在她方》（Nee quelque part），最後第三部作品是譚艾美（Amy Tan）的《喜福會》(The Joy Luck Club)。本篇論文將從這三部作品中討論女性的生活及自我如何被傳統社會結構所牽動，最後探討女性如何經由旅行的過程找到自我。
第一章節指出大多數旅行文學都多以男性為主體，男性的體能及雄心被描述為適合冒險旅行；反之，女性則適合待在安全的場所，也就是家，等待著他的男人歸來。小的時候等待著父親，長大之後，等待他的丈夫。然而隨著時代的變遷，女性的角色侷限在家裡，但是外在的自由不表示內心的自由，女性默默的由社會結構及潮流所指引，「回家」這件事情，究竟是指誰的家？
　　接來下的第二、三及第四章節，分別由三個角度來討論女性的歸鄉旅行，分別從離開（家）、啟發（內心）及返回（外在及內心）三個旅行的過程，分析女性對歸鄉旅行的態度及想法。最後一個章節，期望女性能夠破除社會給予的限制，跳出社會的框架，建議女性藉由緩慢深度的旅行與內心的權威父親形象展開對話，看清自我的想望，並且經由實際行動，活出自我。

關鍵字

旅行 ； 故鄉 ； 歸鄉 ； 自我認同 ； 父親與女兒

並列摘要

Through the investigation of woman writers’ travelling literature, this paper aims to explore how a daughter’s self-identity is strongly influenced by her parents’ genetic and cultural heritage, especially the father’s identification of his hometown, and how this young woman’s true self can be found by engaging herself in a journey that follows one of her parents’ footsteps toward the “root.” This root, or “origin,” has been set as the final destination for the home-coming journey, as Ithaca is for Odysseus’ wanderings in Homer’s the Odyssey, but this destination may turn out to be just another point of departure, as in Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem entitled “Ulysses,” in which Odysseus is ready to leave Ithaca and takes on new adventures again. Hence, this travelling toward one’s root can be considered not only as an act of trying to “get to the right place,” i.e., the home, by moving away from existing restraints and obstacles but also as an endeavor to go across the boundaries to “reach other places” to present a new horizon or a new scope of vision.
To better describe a daughter’s journey to search for her true self, this study borrows some key concepts originally adopted to describe a hero’s quest: departure, enlightenment, and return (or departure again). These three key moments happen in all of the three travelling stories chosen as the examples for my analysis. These women writers either engage themselves in or have their female characters embark in home-bound journeys. However, each of them chooses a unique path for her self-identification, as discussed in the introductory chapter.
The first example is Jinse de ma’an (金色的馬鞍, the Golden Horse Harness) by the Taiwanese/Mongolian poetess and prose-writer Mu-Jung Hsi (席慕蓉), whose father was a native Mongolian in exile. Hsi travels back to her father’s homeland, identifies with its history and culture, and becomes determined to carry on the glories of her cultural heritage in her writings and teachings, as described in Chapter Two.
The second example is Nee quelque part (出生在她方, Born Else Where) by the French comic novelist Johanna Schipper, who was born in Southern Taiwan when her father, a Dutch descendant considering Taiwan his second hometown, took up the profession as a Taoist monk in central and Southern Taiwan during his youth. Schipper undertook the journey from France to Taiwan to once again visit her birthplace and the places his father had treaded on—only to find that the cultural context she identifies with actually lies in France rather than Taiwan, as discussed in Chapter Three.
Chapter Four deals with the Asian-American writer Amy Tan’s novel entitled The Joy Luck Club, in which the main theme is the relationship between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. Instead of portraying a daughter following her father’s footsteps to search for her own identity, as seen in the aforementioned two chapters, this chapter explores the important role a mother plays in the construction of her daughter’s personality, integrity, and self-identity. Hence, an alternative view is offered that tells the other side of the story.
In the concluding chapter, this paper calls into question the practice of channeling a child’s path for self-identity into his/her father’s dominance or mother’s influence; rather, his/her identity is an orchestra that blends the past, the present, and the future, with his/her power of will as the conductor. Similarly, it is not a sound practice to define “home” with rigid geographical terms. If home is defined as a piece of land under our feet, then the act of home-coming inevitably becomes the only way for us to feel like home. However, if home is defined as a piece of love within our soul, then we are home whenever we are with our beloved ones.

並列關鍵字

travelling ； hometown ； home-coming ； self-identity ； father-daughter relationship

參考文獻

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