Freak Shows, Monstrous Women, and the Missing Link: Reading Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White"

失落的一環：《白衣女郎》的異想世界

10.6153/2011.26.06

顏淑娟(Shu-Chuan Yan)

怪胎 ； 怪異性 ； 失落的一環 ； 煽情小說 ； 《白衣女郎》 ； freak ； monstrosity ； the missing link ； the sensation novel ； The Woman in White

NTU Studies in Language and Literature

26期（2011 / 12 / 01）

137 - 168

英文

本文探討怪胎（the freak）的通俗文化、怪異性（monstrosity）的論述發展、以及失落的一環（the missing link）演化理論對於英國1860年代流行的煽情小說（the sensation novel）所賦予的特殊意義。本文嘗試拼湊出威爾基．科林斯（Wilkie Collins）小說家所描述的奇特女性長相，以反映英國維多利亞時期的文化焦慮，同時勾勒出畸形、獸性、物種研究、及性別模糊所引起的一連串科學性的話題。文中第一部份以十九世紀盛行的怪胎秀（the freak show）為出發點，揭露此種娛樂如何利用異常身體的展示與表演成為流行文化的表徵，進而引發人們對於畸形性（deformity）及怪異性（monstrosity）的好奇與著迷。第二部份以科學的觀點，如物種演化及失落的一環（the missing link）等理論，切入怪胎秀（the freak show）的主題，特別是女性的異常身體特徵，以闡明怪胎（thefreak）與科學辯證的連結。第三部份則剖析科林斯的《白衣女郎》（The Womanin White）中，瑪莉安（Marian Halcombe）臉上長毛、酷似猿人的外貌如何顛覆傳統婦女的文化定位，而與英國維多利亞時期理想的女性典範和天使班的女子氣質形成強烈對比。文中強調瑪莉安的人物描寫不但與十九世紀的怪胎秀（freak show）流行文化有關，也與當時甚囂塵上的科學性話題─失落的一環（the missing link）─有裙帶關係。瑪莉安在男人眼中所顯現的半人半獸模樣，如何引發生物演化的情慾議題，而其類似雌雄同體的外表又如何呈現文化混合體（hybridity）的概念，都是研究重點所在。

This essay seeks to explore the way in which the connection between freakishness and extraordinary bodily forms is further illuminated when we turn to the representation of female monstrosity in the sensation novel of the 1860s. It is suggested that the intersection of sentimentalism and spectacle can be found in the sensation novelist's response to the image of female physicality. To this end, the essay is divided into three parts. The first part considers the historical and social context of freak shows in order to better understand the disturbing cultural images of human oddities. It also leads a discussion of how showmen utilize deformity as a device and manipulate bodily differences for sensation and sentiment. The second part places the freak phenomena within a larger context, examining how peculiar cases of anomalies provide a forum for medical discussions and scientific investigations. The intriguing issue of the missing link is addressed so as to locate creatures with monstrosity within a scientific framework. The third part makes a critical inquiry into the cultural image of female monstrosity in Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White (1860), arguing that the sensation novel is closely bound up with the ideological production of freakishness and monstrosity. It is a prime site not only for the construction and justification of bodily variations but for the subversion of gender ideology. The Woman in White is sensational in its exposure of the antithesis to Victorian ideals of fair womanhood and angelic femininity, in particular through the narratives of a bearded and simian-like woman. My reading of Marian Halcombe, a female figure with masculine traits in the novel, will exemplify this point. The ambiguously gendered figure of Marian is indicative of how freakishness is regarded as a social, historical, and cultural phenomenon reflecting many of the cultural anxieties of Victorian society. The portrayal of the hybrid form of Marian's body, a combination of masculinity and femininity, human and animal, represents an ideological mirror that reflects the link between the anonymous body and the missing link. By exhibiting a transgressive woman's bodily spectacle through the trope of monstrosity, I hope to provide an outlook on the problematic gendered identity in Victorian society.

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