本論文的問題意識起於文評家邱貴芬就台灣文學史（以葉石濤台灣文學史綱及彭瑞金台灣新文學運動四十年為代表）中對於七○年代中葉至八○年代初期興盛的女性文學（閨秀文學）和重要的女性作家缺乏重視，所提出的反省與建言。邱認為女性小說無法入史，最主要與上述文學史建構過程中要求的某種特定的「作品的脈絡性」有關。台灣文學史將台灣文學追溯至日治時期為反抗殖民統治並追求民族自治的台灣新文學運動，以其定義台灣文學及檢視文學作品，亦即慣以文本呈現的政治立場、作家認同和文本是否反映「現實」疾苦作為判斷基準。 筆者認為邱思考女性文學入史的可能及建議，是以女性文學的其他書寫脈絡與文學史的主流脈絡對話，作為另類的閱讀角度或詮釋，以彌補或修正原有史觀中的不足和狹隘。此觀點雖然立意良善，但以筆者之見，女性文學的文本脈絡需要更細膩的爬梳和閱讀才能較充分理解其文本性，此外邱的建議與閱讀尚未較完整地面對葉彭二人史觀中明顯的性別偏見。由此，筆者選擇上述時期的兩本女性小說《殺夫》及《桂花巷》進行細部的文本分析，透過並置、對照兩個小說文本中敘事觀點如何形構出女性匱乏主體和形構過程中各種作用力之間如何彼此影響結盟，亦即析離出小說中與貧困、恥辱汙名和性／別體系之間的連動作用，亦即透過分析敘事指出文本中可能隱含或指向的主體位置和政治考量，以期提出一種閱讀方法，質疑和反駁台灣文學和鄉土文學中向來認定社會寫實主義能夠如實為底層民眾代言的寫作傳統和主流女性主義閱讀中對於階序優勢的盲點。 This thesis begins with challenging the predominant criteria—“correct” political commitment and social realism—upheld in the historiography of Taiwanese Literature and Nativist Literature and used by the historians (Yeh Shihtao and Peng Reijin) to measure against female novels and female writers, especially those categorized as guixiu wenxue （閨秀文學） and guixiu zuojia （閨秀作家） discussed in the thesis during the late 1970s and the mid 1980s. Guixiu wenxue has long been slighted and considered trivial and inferior since it usually evolves around and agonizes over domestic issues of family, marriage, love and relationships. Further, the thesis questions the eventual political effectiveness of reinstating the female novels and female writers in the historiographies and striving for canonization therein, reflected upon and suggested by Chiu Kuei-fen, if the glaring gender blindness and biases represented in those historiographies are not reexamined and left intact. To address the raised challenges myself, I propose a reading formulated by detailed textual analysis of two selected female novels—Killing Husband (KH) and Osmanthus Alley (OA). Two narratives are juxtaposed to be read in reference to each other. I argue that such juxtaposition furthers our understanding by comparing and contrasting the narratives in their respective constructions of the feminine subjectivity and representations of the feminine subjects. In the textual analyses, the narrative positionality and desire in each text are sorted out to lay bare the interests they serve and the effects they achieve. In brief, the narrative of KH is interpreted to represent Lin Shih, the feminine subject lacking in any resources and cornered by the shaming mechanism of the sex/gender system, as the ignorant and incompetent foil of another protagonist/feminine subject Li Su, the elitist knowledge subject, in the Lu Cheng Stories. In contrast thereto, the narrative of OA shows a relatively non-judgmental, unapologetic and active formation of the feminine subject. However, the fact that KH and OA have to pose the feminine subjects as victim or legend at two extremes for their female lacking subjectivities to sustain signifies that there is still much textual excavation to do to animate our collective understanding and imagining of the poor and the disadvantaged.
