作者 ｜
陳曉昀(台灣師範大學歷史學系碩士)
摘要 ｜
本研究以明代倫理書中的女性復仇者為核心，探析宣揚女子溫柔卑順的女教書中，以女性為「施暴者」的復仇故事裡，「溫柔順」、「暴力反抗」兩種矛盾特質在同一敘事空間中的性別意義。女性復仇傳記的內容，往往違反女教訓誡，背離女教書所勾勒的女德形象。然而，由於這些暴力殺人的女性實踐了為「其天」、「其至尊」報仇的倫理，女教書的編纂者仍將這些故事編入女子教中。士人以男子之行形容女性復仇，或以稱呼男性的用語，加上「女」字（如「女丈夫」）來形容這些女性，以稱讚復仇的女性。此外，女教書的傳記文字附有插圖，以平面視覺再現復仇女性。編輯者的目的原是希望藉由圖像引起閱讀興趣，並幫助讀者理解文本；但圖像除了再現文本，也表現出超越文字的詮釋，留下諸多耐人尋味的訊息。
女性做為施暴者「為親復仇」，反抗他人惡意的傷害，實處於一個非常特殊的道德情境（復仇本已是具爭議性的道德表現，女性復仇亦增加了此種行為的特異性）。正因教育類書籍所收錄的女性復仇故事特殊而難以歸類，使本文得以藉此探索明代獨特的性別意識與倫理概念，增進對明代性別史、文化史的理解。
關鍵字 ｜
女性復仇、倫理、暴力、圖像、文化史、性別史
Title ｜
Revenge, Gender, and Morality in Ming Didactic Books
Author ｜
Shiau-Yun Chen(Department of History National Taiwan Normal University)
Abstract ｜
This article explores female avengers in the Ming Dinasty’s didactic books, discussing how men of letters connected violence to ideal womanhood. The authors of didactic books assumed ideal women to be delicate and passively amenable; however, vengeance involves robustness and violent brutality, which are contrary to female virtues promoted in didactic books.
Since the Confucian ritual theory allowed only men to take vengeance, female avengers frequently became masculine. In their paeans to righteous murderers, scholars and officials presented female avengers as men, calling them nü zhangfu (female man) and nüzi zhi xiong (female hero). In contrast, men who failed to fulfill their obligation to take vengeance were regarded as women. However, illustrations in didactic books emphasised on female fragility with more sophisticated ways in contrast to the text beside them.
By studying female avengers situated in complicated social situations and conflicting moral contexts, this paper intends to illuminate the tactics used by men of letters as they presented a world in which femininity, violence, and morality intersected. I hope that the results will contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of gender and cultural history in late imperial China.
Keywords ｜
female avenger, morality, violence, illustration, cultural history, gender history