（不）受弱的女人：柯慈《屈辱》中的性暴力、法律與南非新自由主義

(In)Vulnerable Women in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace: Rape and the Law in Neoliberal South Africa

10.6637/CWLQ.202312_52(4).0008

郭家珍(Chia-Chen Kuo)

柯慈 ； 《屈辱》 ； 巴特勒 ； 班雅明 ； 性侵 ； 受弱力 ； 新自由主義 ； 暴力 ； 法律 ； J. M. Coetzee ； Disgrace ； Judith Butler ； Walter Benjamin ； rape ； vulnerability ； neoliberalism ； violence ； the law

中外文學

52卷4期（2023 / 12 / 31）

233 - 268

繁體中文;英文

本論文以巴特勒的受弱力理論開始，探討《屈辱》中的兩場性侵以及女性在性侵中是否有除了性受害之外的受弱性。梅蘭妮經歷權勢性侵卻被消音、主體性被抹除，成為性侵中完全受弱的性受害者。此外，我們既心疼遭受性侵的露西，卻也佩服她所展現因受而弱的能動力。她不讓任何人定義她所經歷的一切，也只有她能夠實踐她心目中的正義；在法律懸置與其暴力被暴露之際，她才得以訴說自己的想法、決定自己的未來。《屈辱》亦反映了南非在新自由主義經濟政策的推行下，危命的不平等分配亦加惡化的事實－性別暴力、階級分化與種族間的緊張關係，成為法律所遮掩或視而不見的真相，也造就了在種族隔離制度結束之後，以暴力取代暴力的惡性循環。露西遭受的性暴力提醒我們：正義無法透過法律實踐，亦無法透過暴力報復取得，想要跳脫法律與暴力的共生關係，唯有揭露法律的暴力並將暴力的法律懸置，透過女性受弱的生命經驗／創傷，展現女性的主體性。

This essay commences by exploring Judith Butler's theory of vulnerability, using two rape cases from J. M. Coetzee's novel, Disgrace, to examine the different vulnerable states that female victims experience. Melanie Isaacs becomes a sexual victim when her voice and subjectivity are erased following her sexual abuse by David Lurie. In contrast, Lucy Lurie's trauma from the rape leads to her transformation from a passive sexual victim into a Butlerian agent with vulnerability. Disgrace also sheds light on the unequal distribution of precarity in the neoliberal South Africa: issues like sexual violence, class distinctions, and racial tensions are often overlooked by the government and unfairly dealt with in the legal system. Such a vicious cycle of precarity and legal exclusion has persisted since the apartheid era. Lucy's rape underscores the limitation of achieving justice through legal means or revenge, and her pregnancy suggests that breaking the short-circuited cycle between the law and violence may involve suspending the law's overwhelming dominance and allowing subjugated citizens to express their own ideas about what they have been through.

1. “Know Your Green Paper on Marriages in South Africa.” Home Affairs: Department of Home Affairs, South Africa. Department of Home Affairs, 2021. Web. 3 Nov. 2022.
2. “SAPS Annual Crime Statistics.” South African Police Service: Department of Police. South African Police Service (SAPS), 2014. Web. 3 Nov. 2022.
3. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. South African Government. Republic of South Africa, 1996. Web. 3 Nov. 2022.
4. Anker, Elizabeth S.(2008).Human Rights, Social Justice, and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.Modern Fiction Studies,54(2),233-267.
5. Artz, Lillian(Ed.),Smythe, Dee(Ed.)(2008).Should We Consent?: Rape Law Reform in South Africa.Cape Town:Juta.
6. Azoulay, Ariella(2002).An Alien Woman/A Permitted Woman: On J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.Scrutiny2,7(1),33-41.
7. Basu, Srimati(2011).Sexual Property: Staging Rape and Marriage in Indian Law and Feminist Theory.Feminist Studies,37(1),185-211.
8. Benjamin, Walter,Jephcott, Edmund(Trans.),Bullock, Marcus(Ed.),Jennings, Michael W.(Ed.)(1996).Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings. Vol. 1: 1913-1926.Cambridge:Harvard UP.
9. Bergoffen, Debra(2003).February 22, 2001: Toward a Politics of the Vulnerable Body.Hypatia,18(1),116-134.
10. Boehmer, Elleke(2002).Not Saying Sorry, Not Speaking Pain: Gender Implications in Disgrace.Interventions,4(3),342-351.
11. Brittan, Alice(2010).Death and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.Contemporary Literature,51(3),477-502.
12. Butler, Judith(2004).Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence.New York:Verso.
13. Butler, Judith(1997).Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative.New York:Routledge.
14. Chapman, Michael(2009).Coetzee, Gordimer and the Nobel Prize.Scrutiny2,14(1),57-65.
15. Code, Lorraine(2009).A New Epistemology of Rape?.Philosophical Papers,38(3),327-345.
16. Comaroff, John L.,Comaroff, Jean(2004).Criminal Justice, Cultural Justice: The Limits of Liberalism and the Pragmatics of Difference in the New South Africa.American Ethnologist,31(2),188-204.
17. Danta, Chris(2007).Like a Lamb’: Becoming Sacrificial Animal in Kafka and Coetzee.New Literary History,38(4),721-737.
18. Dardot, Pierre,Laval, Christian(2013).The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society.New York:Verso.
19. Dosekun, Simidele(2013).Rape is a huge issue in this country’: Discursive Constructions of the Rape Crisis in South Africa.Feminism & Psychology,23(4),517-535.
20. Du Toit, Louise(2009).A Philosophical Investigation of Rape: The Making and Unmaking of the Feminine Self.New York:Routledge.
21. Eagleton, Mary(2001).Ethical Reading: The Problem of Alice Walker’s ‘Advancing Luna—and Ida B. Wells’ and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.Feminist Theory,2(2),189-203.
22. Erlank, Natasha(2005).ANC Positions on Gender, 1994-2004.Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies,32(2),195-215.
23. Gane, Gillian(2002).Unspeakable Injuries in Disgrace and David’s Story.Kunapipi,24(1),101-113.
24. Gilson, Erinn Cunniff(2016).Vulnerability and Victimization: Rethinking Key Concepts in Feminist Discourses on Sexual Violence.Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society,42(1),71-98.
25. Gilson, Erinn Cunniff(2011).Vulnerability, Ignorance, and Oppression.Hypatia,26(2),308-332.
26. Gqola, Pumla Dineo(2007).How the ‘Cult of Femininity’ and Violent Masculinities Support Endemic Gender Based Violence in Contemporary South Africa.African Identities,5(1),111-124.
27. Gqola, Pumla Dineo(2015).Rape: A South African Nightmare.Sunnyside:MFBooks.
28. Graham, Lucy Valerie(2012).State of Peril: Race and Rape in South African Literature.Oxford:Oxford UP.
29. Graham, Lucy Valerie(2003).Reading the Unspeakable: Rape in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.Journal of Southern African Studies,29(2),433-444.
30. Guows, Amanda. “Rape Is Endemic in South Africa: Why the ANC Government Keeps Missing the Mark.” Mail and Guardian. Mail and Guardian, 4 Aug. 2022. Web. 16 Nov. 2022.
31. Hoad, Neville(2005).Thabo Mbeki’s AIDS Blues: The Intellectual, the Archive, and the Pandemic.Public Culture,17(1),101-127.
32. Jejeebhoy, Shireen J.(Ed.),Shah, Iqbal(Ed.),Thapa, Shyam(Ed.)(2005).Sex Without Consent: Young People in Developing Countries.New York:Zed.
33. Jewkes, Rachel,Abrahams, Naeema(2002).The Epidemiology of Rape and Sexual Coercion in South Africa: An Overview.Social Science and Medicine,55,1231-1244.
34. Judge, Melanie(2021).Queer at 25: A Critical Perspective on Queerness, Politics and Futures.Journal of Asian and African Studies,56(1),120-134.
35. Kelly, Michelle(2015).Playing It by the Book’: The Rule of Law in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.Research in African Literatures,46(1),160-178.
36. Khamfula, Yohane,Tesfayohannes, Mengsteab(2004).South Africa and Southern African Monetary Union: A Critical Review of Sources of Costs and Benefits.The South African Journal of Economics,72(1),37-49.
37. Lamb, Sharon(Ed.)(1999).New Versions of Victims: Feminists Struggle with the Concept.New York:New York UP.
38. Leach, Justine Tara Amy(2017).U of Toronto.
39. Lewis, Desiree(2021).Governmentality and South Africa’s Edifice of Gender and Sexual Rights.Journal of Asian and African Studies,56(1),109-119.
40. Marais, Michael(2001).Very Morbid Phenomena: ‘Liberal Funk,’ the ‘Lucy-Syndrome’ and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.Scrutiny2,6(1),32-38.
41. Martel, James(2011).Waiting for Justice: Benjamin and Derrida on Sovereignty and Immanence.Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts,2(2),158-172.
42. Mills, Shereen W.(2010).Consent and Coercion in the Law of Rape in South Africa: A Feminist Transformative Approach.Canadian Woman Studies,28(1),81-89.
43. Mussi, Francesca(2020).Literary Legacies of the South African TRC: Fictional Journeys into Trauma, Truth, and Reconciliation.Cham:Palgrave Macmillan.
44. Mwambene, Lea,Wheal, Maudri(2015).Realization or Oversight of a Constitutional Mandate? Corrective Rape of Black African Lesbians in South Africa.African Human Rights Law Journal,15,58-88.
45. Narsiah, Sagie(2002).Neoliberalism and Privatization in South Africa.GeoJournal,57,29-38.
46. Ndou, Treasure Rudo(2019).U of Pretoria.
47. Odysseos, Louiza(2010).Human Rights, Liberal Ontogenesis and Freedom: Producing a Subject for Neoliberalism?.Millennium: Journal of International Studies,38(3),747-772.
48. Phiri, Aretha(2015).Queer Subjectivities in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘On Monday of Last Week.’.Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity,29(1),155-163.
49. Posel, Deborah(2005).Sex, Death and the Fate of the Nation: Reflections on the Politicization of Sexuality in Post-Apartheid South Africa.Africa: Journal of the International African Institute,75(2),125-153.
50. SABC. “ANC Sub-Committee Suggests Chemical Castration for Rapists.” SABCNews. SABC News, 31 July 2022. Web. 4 Nov. 2022.
51. Samuelson, Meg(2002).The Rainbow Womb: Rape and Race in South African Fiction of the Transition.Kunapipi,24(1),88-100.
52. Sebake, B. K.(2017).Neoliberalism in the South African Post-Apartheid Regime: Economic Policy Positions and Globalization Impact.The 2nd Annual International Conference on Public Administration and Development Alternatives,Tlotlo Hotel, Gaborone, Botswana:
53. Shulman, George(2011).On Vulnerability as Judith Butler’s Language of Politics: From Excitable Speech to Precarious Life.Women’s Studies Quarterly,39(1-2),227-235.
54. Snyman, C. R.(2008).Criminal Law.Durban:LexisNexis.
55. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty(2002).Ethics and Politics in Tagore, Coetzee, and Certain Scenes of Teaching.Diacritics,32(3-4),17-31.
56. Stringer, Rebecca(2013).Vulnerability after Wounding: Feminism, Rape Law, and the Differend.SubStance,42(3),148-168.
57. Wicomb, Zoë(2002).Translations in the Yard of Africa.Journal of Literary Studies,18(3-4),209-223.
58. Wood, Kate,Lambert, Helen,Jewkes, Rachel(2007).‘Showing Roughness in a Beautiful Way’: Talk about Love, Coercion, and Rape in South African Youth Sexual Culture.Medical Anthropology Quarterly,21(3),277-300.
59. Wright, Laura(2006).Writing “Out of All the Camps”: J. M. Coetzee’s Narratives of Displacement.New York:Routledge.
60. 柯慈, J. M.,孟祥森（譯）, Xiangsen(Trans.)(2008).屈辱.台北=Taipei:遠見=Global Views.
61. 曾慶豹, Kenpa(2016)。沒有力量的正義──班雅明對法的批判。哲學與文化，43(4)，91-106。