Between Reality and Contrivance: Body Performance and Class Imagination in Sarah Waters' Fingersmith

真實與謀劃的游移－莎拉．華特斯《荊棘之城》的身體扮演與階級想像

10.6258/bcla.2014.81.05

葉雅茹(Ya-Ju Yeh)

身體 ； 階級 ； 扮演 ； 莎拉‧華特斯 ； 《荊棘之城》 ； body ； class ； performance ； Sarah Waters ； ＂Fingersmith＂

臺大文史哲學報

81期（2014 / 11 / 01）

149 - 172

英文

《荊棘之城》被譽為莎拉‧華特斯「維多利亞三部曲」中最傑出的作品，入圍英國文學柑橘獎和曼布克獎，奠定了華特斯在當代文壇的重要地位。以英國維多利亞時代的倫敦為背景，刻畫當時的階級流動與性別關係，具備嚴謹的敘事結構與詳實的時代考據，歸類為歷史犯罪小說；亦因小說中兩位女主角的曖昧情愫，或被定位為女性同志小說。兩位成長環境迥異的少女，蘇珊與莫德陷入身份調換的多重陰謀：她們謀劃隱瞞真實身份，以模仿動作舉止與服飾穿著，企圖扮演女主人與侍女身份；然而扮演的角色與原本身份在扮演中一再逆轉，真實與謀劃的身份撲朔迷離、游移不定。本文試圖分析小說中各種形式的身體扮演，探究華特斯筆下身體扮演的意義，以及其中所呈現出的階級想像。

Sarah Waters' ＂Fingersmith＂ (2002) has been acclaimed for the most suspenseful work within her popular Victorian quasi-trilogy. Full of twists and turns, it soon made the bestseller list and has been serialized on film by the BBC. With its solid narrative structure and precise setting in Victorian England, it is categorized as a historical crime fiction; with its same-sex love plots between two heroines, it is also deemed a lesbian novel. The protagonist is Susan Trinder, an orphan in the care of Mrs. Sucksby whose London slum household hosts a transient family of petty thieves. Susan helps Richard Rivers seduce a wealthy heiress, Maud Lilly, who is raised in a country house named Briar, where she lives a secluded life under the care of her uncle. Susan and Maud are set to change their identities in a treacherous double-cross: they perform, either knowingly or unknowingly, roles of mistress and maid in the contrived performance as well as in their reality of life. Their performances involve an imitation of body gestures and an intimacy of feminine garments. Exploring the confusion between contrivance and reality in the novel, this paper aims to analyze various modes of performance derived from class implications and delves into how Waters complicates the significance of body performance.

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