本文分析美國第一波女性主義社會運動者吉爾曼的自傳《活著》,重新詮釋其內外區隔二元言說,再從日記與自傳雙重文類的面向,說明自傳我與日記我逐漸融合,代表內在的生命與外在的生活逐漸合一;自傳我成為最后的聲音,并不表示吉爾曼成為"男的"女人;相反地,她以人類進步為人生職志的基礎乃植基于女性日常生活經驗,唯有促進女性進步,才可提升人類福祉。此論點豐富學界對吉爾曼個人敘述之研究,呼應學者對公眾女性自傳書寫的討論。

This paper aims to shed new lights on the study of women’s autobiography by analyzing the double boundary crossing of the autobiography of Charlotte Perkins Gilman,a significant American feminist and social activist at the turn of the 20 th century. The first boundary crossing of Gilman in this work is that of the inside/private/woman vs. the outside/public/man division,which she succeeds by integrating the living self that dedicates herself to improving human welfare and the self that lives and endures harsh reality of the outside world. Gilman crosses the generic boundary between autobiographical and diary writing by the gradual transformation of her autobiographical self because she re-reads the past to understand and improve the imperfect world. With the double boundary crossing,Gilman re-visions autobiography to be a non-exclusive gender genre and gives meaning to both women’s living and writing.