女性“观看”与主体建构——解读安·贝蒂的《换挡》与《刻画威尔》

Female Visuality and Subjectivity——A Study of Ann Beattie's Shifting and Picturing Will

凝视~①是一种内蕴了权力的行为,父权社会中的女性通常活在有形或无形的男性凝视之下,安·贝蒂在许多作品中,都探讨了女性在凝视与反凝视的性别权力斗争中的命运。《换挡》和《刻画威尔》分别呈现了两位女主人公在与主体建构密切相关的"观看"方式方面的异同,从而走向了差异化的主体建构路径,反射出贝蒂对于女性该如何去"看"的思考。她反对女性挪用男性"观看"的方式,即精神的、理性的、内蕴权力等级的凝视,而提倡一种将肉身性也一并包含在视觉行为中的"观看",以避免视觉中心主义以及理性的霸权,重新构建联结身心的主体性。

Gaze is embedded with power and politics. Visibly or invisibly, women in the patriarchal society live under the male gaze. In many works, Ann Beattie explores the fate of women in the struggle of resisting the power disciplines of gaze. Beattie s Shifting and Picturing Will demonstrate the similarities and differences of the two heroines in visual behaviors and their consequent differentiated subject construction, which reveals Beattie s thoughts concerning women s way of seeing. She apparently objects to women s adoption of men s way of seeing, which is spiritual, rational and hierarchical in power, as usually represented by gaze. Instead, Beattie advocates the way of seeing which is intrinsically corporeal. Thus, women not only perceive form and rationality but also body and desire, so as to avoid rationality s tyranny over body and desire and construct the subjectivity based upon the connection between body and mind.