| 摘要: | 王爾德透過他的社會喜劇扭轉了他所處時代中產階級女人的理想形象，並且挑戰中產階級家庭生活的虛假理想。這篇論文討論王爾德如何在四部社會喜劇中呈現不同於他時代的中產階級女性，同時也從西蒙‧波娃在《第二性》中的女性主義觀點討論維多利亞時期中產階級女人的處境。王爾德不僅顛覆了維多利亞時期對女性角色的刻版形象；也打破了虛假的理想：愛情的神聖和中產階級對婚姻的理想。王爾德喜劇中的女性角色主動地追求她們想要的財富、愛情、婚姻；和維多利亞時期女性害羞、含蓄的形象相反。王爾德四部喜劇中某些女性角色的行為代表他對中產階級文化的挑戰，因此，我們可以看到那些非傳統的女性角色如何扭轉加在女性身上的父權價值。
本論文共分為五章，第一章介紹維多利亞後期的社會背景，第二章介紹西蒙‧波娃的女性主義理論。在西蒙波娃的《第二性》中使用了從存在主義哲學中衍生出來的二元論：主體和他者。王爾德的女性角色代表附屬的他者挑戰支配的價值。第三章探討王爾德喜劇中所描繪的父權社會中之家庭。他似乎建議男人與女人都互相接受對方真實的ㄧ面；因為男人和女人ㄧ樣都是凡人。
第四章討論王爾德喜劇中女性「玩世不恭型人物」如何利用策略追求她們的愛情、婚姻或是財富。透過這些大膽的女性，王爾德顛覆了父權的標準：男人是主動的，女人是被動的。王爾德在他的喜劇中創造了主導行動的女人。第五章討論中產階級婚姻中的商業主義，在維多利亞社會中以夫妻之間的愛為基礎的婚姻是很少見的。王爾德像他當時的女性主義者ㄧ樣挑戰中產階級婚姻的制度，這樣的制度隱藏著對女性的父權壓迫。西蒙‧波娃提出女性在她的成長過程中對兩性關係懵懂無知並且相信男人的優越性，而丈夫的社會地位或是婚姻本身都比丈夫的個性重要。王爾德在西蒙‧波娃之前就做了這樣的觀察並反映在他的喜劇中。
王爾德描寫的女性符合西蒙‧波娃理想中的獨立女性，王爾德喜劇中所有主要的女性角色都可以被視為新中產階級女性。王爾德挑戰社會、性別和道德的傳統；諷刺並顛覆維多利亞社會的傳統價值，他透過他的喜劇傳遞了一個重要的社會演進之訊息：男女平等。在他所描繪的社會中，有許多新中產階級女性；她們獨立的心智甚至比二十一世紀的女人更堅強。她們有勇氣去爭取維多利亞社會認為她們不該有的權利。王爾德不只是ㄧ個大膽的反叛者，也是個嚴肅的思想家。透過他機智且幽默的文筆，男女平等的觀念生動的呈現在他的喜劇中，比社會主義者的文章更讓人印象深刻。
Oscar Wilde tries to reverse the ideal image of bourgeois women of his age through his society comedies. Throughout Wilde’s plays, he challenges the fake ideal of bourgeois domesticity. This thesis discusses how Oscar Wilde presents the bourgeois women of his time in four society comedies. It also discusses bourgeois women’s situation in the Victorian age by using Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist theory in The Second Sex. Wilde not only subverts stereotypes of female roles, but also breaks the fake ideal such as the sacredness of love and the bourgeois ideal of marriage. Contrary to the image of shy, reserved Victorian woman, the female characters in Wilde’s comedies actively pursue what they want. Wilde’s daring female characters represent his challenge to bourgeois culture. Thus, we can see how those untraditional female characters fight against the patriarchal value toward women.
This thesis is divided in five chapters. Chapter I introduces the social background and the position of women in the late Victorian age. Chapter II introduces the fundamentals of Simone de Beauvoirs’s feminist theory. The framing paradigm of de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, derived from Existentialist philosophy, is the binary of Subject and Other. Wilde’s female characters represent the subordinate Other which challenges the dominant Subject. Chapter III discusses the domesticity of women in the patriarchal society which is depicted in Wilde’s comedies. Wilde urges men and women alike to accept one another as they are and not to place one another on “monstrous pedestals,” because people are all mortals, women as well as men.
Chapter IV discusses how some of the female dandies of Wilde’s comedies pursue their love or marriages by using strategies. Some of them do succeed in getting what they want. Through these daring females, Wilde subverts the patriarchal standard of active men and passive women. Wilde created women who dominate the action in his plays. Chapter V discusses the commercialism of bourgeois marriages. In Victorian society marriage based on the couple’s love is the exception rather than the rule. Like feminists of the period, Wilde challenges the institution of bourgeois marriage, which hides the patriarchal repression of women. De Beauvoir’s concept of marriage echoes Wilde’s treatment of marriage in his society comedies. Women were brought up in complete ignorance of differences between the two sexes and to believe in the superiority of men, the personality of the husband was often far less relevant than his social status or the institution of marriage itself.
The major female characters depicted in Wilde’s comedies correspond to de Beauvoir’s ideal independent women. All of them in Wilde’s comedies can be seen as female dandies and novel bourgeois women. Wilde challenged social, sexual, and moral conventions, satirizing and subverting the traditional values on which Victorian society was based. Through his comedies, Wilde sends an important message of social progress: women should be equal with men. In the society of his comedies, there are many novel bourgeois women whose independent minds are even stronger than those of the women in the twenty-first century. Bourgeois women in Wilde’s society comedies have courage to fight for rights that Victorian society denies them. Through his witty and humor language, the concept that women should be equal with men is more vividly presented in his comedies than in socialistic writing. Therefore, Wilde is not just a daring rebel, but also a serious thinker. |
