Roaring Girls and Silent Women: Female Verbal Unruliness in Early Modern English Drama

[[abstract]]文藝復興時期，父權主義者利用行為 手冊、民謠、戲劇及神壇講道再三告誡女 性，女性必須服從、貞潔與沈默。女人將 此訓誡內化，並據以建構自我認知與性別 角色。父權主義者規範了單一、固定的女 性特質以確保男尊女卑的父權體制。然 而，戲劇中的「惡女」（unruly women）卻 大膽抗拒傳統性別思想。 本計畫擬以《馴悍記》、《咆哮女郎》、 《沈默女人》等劇中悍婦與咆哮女人的戲 劇人物類型探討文藝復興戲劇所呈現女性 語言反叛之意涵。她們正符合厭惡女人者 所想像的惡女形象。她們的語言不斷探測 性別的界限。劇作家透過這些惡女，對父 權主義者所建構的女人特質與地位提出質 疑。這些劇本就女性的語言與沈默、性別 政治、父權權威等議題提出討論。 藉由唯物女性主義（materialist feminism）的批評觀剖析英國文藝復興時 期的戲劇與社會歷史文件中父權意識對女 性言語無所不在的掌控，透露出男性意欲 掌控、駕馭女人的情結以及對女性言詞反 叛、不受約束的恐懼。父權主義者以維護 社會秩序為由，對違反規範的惡女施加頭 枷（bridle）、壓舌器（gag）、坐板凳浸水 （ducking）等懲罰，實則男性為了鞏固父 權優勢，祭出暴力，逼迫女人臣服。 女性被迫沈默是因：（一）嚴厲懲罰的 威脅（如頭枷與壓舌器），（二）女性受傳 統社會規範的制約，（三）語言交換的權力 運作，（四）男性權威人物的介入等。父權 主義者大力壓抑女性的聲音、剝奪她們的 發言權，正反映出這些女人的確威脅到父 權體制。她們不理傳統的訓誡，更不睬社 會規範，勇於追求獨立、創造自我，並將 女性特質從同質化的貞潔、沈默與順從擴 2 充至異質化的獨立、自主與反叛。她們的 聲音無疑鬆動了當時主宰社會思想之父權 意識的穩定性。[[abstract]]In early modern England, pamphlets, conduct manuals, ballads, plays, or sermons from the pulpits all exhort women to be obedient and submissive to their husbands and fathers. These injunctions are internalized to a great extent by women in their conception of themselves and their proper roles within a patriarchal framework. Women are controlled by the fixed cultural construction of feminine virtue in way to stabilize the position of male supremacy. Yet, a resistance to these fixed, subordinate ideas toward female obedience, chastity, and virtue can also be seen from the representations of unruly female characters. This study explores representations of female verbal unruliness through three character types—the shrew (scolding), the roaring girl (brawling), and the disobedient wife (dominating her husband)—in The Taming of the Shrew, The Roaring Girl, and Epicoene or The Silent Woman, along with relevant plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. These characters fit the misogynist images of women whose voices test the boundaries of gender identity. Through the voices of these unruly women characters, playwrights test the assumptions of a long tradition of patriarchy on the nature and status of women. These plays are deeply engaged with questions of speech, gender, and authority, by presenting women’s speech and silence in relation to male authority. Employing a materialist feminist approach, I draw on early modern English plays and social history to show the patriarchal obsession in the control of female speeches and its fear of female verbal unruliness. I would like to focus on the horrifying controls placed on women’s transgressive tongues, which are reflected in the uses of bridles and gags, and cucking stools in disciplining convicted shrews, scolds, and disobedient wives, in the hope to excavate the implications of such male obsession and fear. These rituals of punishment are often adopted under the pretext of communal solidarity. But such violence almost always exposes the underlying self-interest for the patriarchal males who only exploit females. Factors, contributing to the silencing of women characters, are the impositions (real or threatening) of correcting measures (bridles and gags), the norms that govern women’s speech in social contexts, the dynamics of power in speaking situations, or the interference of a male figure of authority. The oppressive silencing of women’s voices suggests that Renaissance women are conceived to constitute a real threat to the patriarchal status quo. Disregarding the traditional injunctions for women to be chaste, silent, and obedient, these unruly female characters practice independent self-fashioning, disrupt rigid social conventions, or defy their male superiors. 3 They are seldom mute, silent, or quiet. They expand the spectrum of femininity to incorporate heterogeneous elements of female independence, autonomy, and unruliness. Their voices will no doubt catalyze fissures in the dominant ideology