Contamination and Equivocation: Managing Female Rebellion in Adeline Mowbray

艾蜜莉雅．亞德森．歐碧（Amelia Alderson Opie, 1769-1853）的小説《愛德蘭．莫白瑞》（Adeline Mowbray）(1805)常被視為法國大革命及恐怖統治後一部反激進之作，雖歐碧與哥德温（William Godwin）及渥斯坦克萊（MaryWollstonecraft）的激進圈子甚為親近。《愛德蘭．莫白瑞》積極評論現況及新興哲學，表面保守，實則揭露社會規範的空洞。歐碧的小説將被輿論唾棄的讀書女子、激進分子、墮落女子、和外國人比喻為污染，藉以檢視英國父權社會。歐碧顛覆污染的概念，暗喻看似飽受污染威脅的社會，實為髒污的荒原。此言詞閃爍之策公開支持主流意識，但暗中行批評之實，讓歐碧在高壓氛圍中表達顛覆性觀察時，得以保守婦道。言詞閃爍為歐碧處理女性造反議題的權宜之計，因為女人造反不見容於社會且被視為道德淪喪。歐碧的造反經迂迴手法處理後，展現保守外觀，有助確保其名聲及作品的出版。歐碧揭露社會輿論的不公。哥德温所倡的真愛伴侶，雖無婚姻保障且被視為悖德，但驗證於主角身上，卻是書中唯一理性互愛的結合。歐碧暗指英國保守社會消滅激進勢力的做法，毒害國家且危害其純潔分子。書中英國社會排斥讀書女子、激進分子、墮落女子、和外國人並視其為污染，不僅方向錯誤，對解決父權專制、放蕩主義、貪婪、偽善等深層污染源，則全面失敗。

關鍵字

污染；激進主義；女性造反；言詞閃爍；反雅各賓；歐碧

並列摘要

Amelia Alderson Opie's (1769-1853) Adeline Mowbray (1805) is usually considered an anti-Jacobin novel of the post-French Revolution and Reign of Terror era because of its ostensible condemnation of the radical opposition to marriage, despite Opie's close ties with William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's circle of radicals. Written in the ＂war of ideas＂ and arduously participating in the assessment of both the status quo and emergent political philosophies, Adeline Mowbray seems to tout a conservative political allegiance but actually undermines contemporary British reactionary, patriarchal society's value systems by revealing them to be devoid of substantial merit. Opie's novel of purpose effectively deploys the trope of contamination, a label frequently imposed upon such social outcasts as reading women, fallen women, radicals, and racial others at the time, to reflect on society instead. Turning the idea of contamination on its head, Opie reveals British society, which is usually portrayed to be endangered by contamination, to be the actual seat of a polluted wasteland. This strategy of equivocation- publicly endorsing dominant ideologies and covertly critiquing them- allows Opie to maintain feminine propriety while articulating her honest if subversive observations about society in the repressive political era depicted in the novel. Equivocation works as an expedient by which Opie manages her rebellion, which was not tolerated by her society since female rebels were associated with the French Revolution and deemed immoral. Opie's rebellion, reined in by indirection, presents a quasi-conservative outlook, which helped to secure not only her reputation but the publication of her work. Opie exposes the fragility of and injustice in social conventions and public opinion. Godwin’s concept of rational and affectionate companionship without the sanction of marriage, while excoriated as immoral, when practiced by Adeline and Glenmurray in the novel, is the only benevolent, sensible, and meaningful relationship within the fictional economy, though society spares no effort to persecute them. The British society and its measures to quell any radical impulses in the wake of the French Revolution, Opie implies, stunt Britain's social, political, and cultural progress and creates an infested environment, which not only contaminates its subjects but also endangers possibly its purest elements. In the novel, British society's multi-faceted measures to exclude perceived pollutants, such as reading women, radicals, fallen women, and racial others, are revealed to be misdirected attempts to rid presumed, superficial ills, while failing comprehensively to tackle the genuine elements of contamination such as patriarchal tyranny, libertinism, greed, and hypocrisy.

並列關鍵字

contamination ； radicalism ； female rebellion ； equivocation ； anti-Jacobin ； Opie

參考文獻

Bacon, Jon Lance(1991).Wives, Widows, and Writings in Restoration Comedy.SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900.31(3),427-43.

Google Scholar

Brightwell, Cecilia Lucy(2013).Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie, Selected and Arranged from Her Letters, Diaries, and Other Manuscripts.Google Book.