The Maimed Body As A Lie: Charity and Disability Con Man in The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade

破碎身體是謊言：《騙子》中慈善與失能騙子

王曉慧(Hiu-Wai Wong)

《高醫通識教育學報》 16期 (2021/12) Pp. 1-27

摘要

Herman Melville's fiction, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, portrays an interesting scene, the con man selling stories, whose purpose is to persuade people to donate money or buy commercial products. Among various con men, disability con men are the most remarkable ones, as the stories they sell are based on their maimed bodies. The passengers on Fidèle are intrigued, and also disturbed, since they cannot tell if the disabled appearance designates truth. This paper probes several issues. First, I will look into the new socially constructed meaning of disability in mid-nineteenth-century America, when industrialism replaced religion in terms of the definition of the potency and value of individuals. Second, I discuss the emergence of charity, which, against the initial intention of helping people in need, intensified the discrepancy between able-bodied and disabled people. Third, I discuss the prevalence of confidence games in mid-nineteenth-century America, which caused the collective anxiety about being deceived by the disability con man. Last but not least, in order to look for the new possibility for the disabled body, I will draw on Michel Serres's notion of the parasite to discuss how the disabled body is not the inferior body.

關鍵字

Charity ； confidence man ； Disability Melville ； Serres

並列摘要

赫爾曼．梅爾維爾的《騙子》當中，描述了各種騙子販賣著他們的故事，其目的是要遊說聽眾捐款和購買他們的商品。其中以失能騙子最有趣，因為他們所販賣的故事建立在他們的不完整身軀上。在費德勒這艘船上乘客們對於失能騙子感到困擾，因為他們難以分辨他們的失能表象是否指涉出真相。本文將探討幾個重點。首先，作者討論十九世紀中期美國對於失能的社會性建構意涵。當時工業主義取代了宗教，重新定義了個體的能力與價值。再者，作者探討慈善的興起，慈善的本意原是要消除貧富不均，但郤反而加深對身體與失能身體族群的對立。第三，作者聚焦在討論十九世紀中期美國騙術的盛行，以及恐懼受到失能騙子欺騙的集體焦慮。最後，為了探索失能身體的新可能性，作者引用米榭．賽荷的寄生蟲理論，探討失能身體並非較次等的一種身體意念。

並列關鍵字

失能 ； 騙子 ； 慈善 ； 梅爾維爾 ； 賽荷