【作者】 李保杰；

【导师】 郭继德；

【作者基本信息】 山东大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2009， 博士

【摘要】 奇卡诺文学大致是指从20世纪40年代至今的当代墨西哥裔美国文学。因为早期墨西哥裔美国文学主要用西班牙语进行创作,所以它对于大多数英语读者来说十分陌生。在文化移入和20世纪60年代民权运动的影响下,墨西哥裔美国文学的主题和表现手法发生了重大变化,旨在于再现墨西哥裔美国人的多重文化经历。另外,大多数作家开始用英语或者双语进行写作,从而使更多读者了解到这些文学作品。因为奇卡诺文学的起源早于美国主流英语文学,但是直到最近半个世纪才得到主流读者群体的广泛认同所以说它,历史悠久、面貌全新。在经历一个半世纪的发展后,奇卡诺文学已取得令人瞩目的成就,文学作品获得多项全国(甚至国际)重要文学奖项,作家也开始在国家重要文学活动中崭露头角。奇卡诺文学呈现为高度的异质性,具有时间和空间上的多样性特征,而这又和美国西南部各州的历史紧密相关。尽管如此,奇卡诺文化和主流文化的关系始终是奇卡诺叙述中的一个普遍主题,文化的冲突、整合与和解一直是奇卡诺文学话语的焦点。在当代奇卡诺文学中,“边界”概念就是其中的一个实例。它既是概念又是隐喻,来指代墨西哥裔美国人处于文化罅隙之间的多重身份以及他们在美国的散居状况。“边界”的所指最初仅限于19世纪40年代美墨战争后确立的美墨国界线。与战前相比,墨西哥的国界线向南缩进了数千英里,使得北部边陲的广袤地区脱离祖国、并入美国版图。世代生活在这片土地上的墨西哥人的生活经历了身份的“裂变”——他们成为归化了的美国公民,因此“边界”起初代表着差异和随之而来的矛盾冲突。边界确立之初,由于主流文化群体对墨西哥裔美国人实行了经济剥削和文化同化政策,边疆地区见证了各种激烈的冲突,“边界”也成为美国心智中纷争和动荡的象征。与主流文化群体的期望背道而驰的是,边界没有成为抵挡南岸墨西哥文化影响的屏障,也没能完全发挥促进文化同化的作用,相反,它却成为促进双边影响的通道。随着人员和商品的双向流动,边界的文化影响慢慢地超越了其地理局限。边界概念呈现出的多种表现形式以及由于边界的存在而造就的文化整合共同构成了生机勃勃的边疆风景。回顾现有边界确立以来的一个半世纪,美墨边界已经成为世界上最活跃的边界之一,其中部分原因就是其独特的历史渊源和地理位置。因此,由于地理边界存在而产生的各种边界概念、文化冲突整合及其文学表征都构成了边疆的重要风景。边界研究起初是社会学领域的一个研究分支,以美墨边界为研究对象,涉及边界经济、政治、历史及其文化表现形式。最早的边界研究是随着边界的确立而产生的,其影响彰显于20世纪初,并在20世纪上半叶得到全面体现。从20世纪80年代开始,在文化研究的影响下,文学中的边界研究从传统的社会学边界研究中分离出来,集中研究边界概念的文学表征。已故的奇卡娜学者格洛丽亚·安扎尔多瓦是一位卓越的边界研究的文学理论家,在其代表作《边疆:新生混血女儿》一书中,她建立了边界研究的基本文学理论框架。更重要的是,她提出了“新混血儿意识”的概念,这是一种包容性的立场,通过糅合不同身份来生成新的合力。“包容不确定身份”的主题在当代奇卡诺文学的边疆叙述中颇具代表性,成为奇卡诺群体民族文化的代表,并且对美国其它族裔文学同样具有启发意义。可见,地理意义的边界也具有了各种象征性的含义。墨西哥裔美国文学和奇卡诺文学等术语的概念化都见之于各种边界概念的存在。随着1848年《瓜德卢佩-伊达尔戈条约》的签订,墨西哥文学的北部分支被归化为墨西哥裔美国文学。大约从那时起,边界概念就开始对美国心理(特别是墨西哥裔美国人的心理)产生影响。墨西哥裔美国作家描写多种不同形式的边界及其影响,来反映边疆地区的文化冲突以及人们的种种反应。边界主题因而从产生的那一刻起就带有殖民和反殖民的特征。尽管墨西哥裔美国文学具有历史和地理上的差异性,但是墨西哥裔美国文化和盎格鲁美国文化的整合始终是文学再现的一个焦点。作家们运用不同的边疆叙述方式来解构权威的核心地位,或者确立奇卡诺杂糅身份的地位。本文尝试建立奇卡诺文学边疆研究的构架。论文以“边疆”意象作为中心,来研究以奇卡诺文化杂糅身份为基础的多种边疆叙述方式。边界不仅仅是有形的实体,而且还是心理和文学表征,它代表着差异、障碍和误解,同样体现着沟通理解的可能性,这些因素共同构筑了边疆风貌。虽然学者们广泛研究了边界概念在文学中的应用,但是大多数研究只是把边界作为比喻意象,而以边界概念为框架的系统研究相对匮乏。本文既研究边界的客观存在,又探讨其喻义,从这两方面研究边界概念的文化延伸及其对奇卡诺心理的影响。论文将“边界”概念延伸至“边疆”,以此探讨边界概念屈折深远的内涵。通过考察不同形式的跨越边界行为,文章试图从不同角度透视文学再现中活力四射、丰富多彩的边疆风貌。通过研究叙事结构框架下的各种边疆叙述形式,结合当代奇卡诺文学从“无形”到“有形”的发展,力图对这一族裔文学进行的全面理解。本文对以往奇卡诺文学边界研究中的二元论提出了质疑,并试图通过三位一体的构架来证明边界和边界再现的广泛性。第一章以边界的存在为基础对边界研究和奇卡诺文学发展进行了系统的梳理。起初,边界研究中的“边界”仅指国界,包括国界线以及国界线附近的边境地区。边界逐渐地具有了比喻性含义,扩展至各种比喻意义上的边界,例如种族、阶级、性别以及性取向等等。正是因为这种概念上的复杂性,边界研究的内容极其庞杂,呈现出多层次和异质性的特点。例如,仅仅就狭义的文化概念而言,边界研究就涉及与边界概念密切相关的语言学、社会学、人类学、绘画、音乐、文学、历史等社会科学分支。边界概念的多样性使边界概念内部又衍生出不同的边界,因此,在深入理解此概念的基础上,研究者就能够把握族裔群体内部在文学表现方法上的差异。另一方面,正确理解边界概念还有助于将边界研究延伸至美国文学的宏观研究、拉美文学与西班牙裔美国文学的对比研究或者美国族裔文学分支之间的对比研究。具体到奇卡诺文学,边界不仅使早期墨西哥裔美国文学被主流群体所忽略,而且也造就了奇卡诺文学分支之间的地缘文化差异。除了标志着墨西哥人被殖民化为墨西哥裔美国人的国界线之外,墨西哥裔群体内部还存在各种边界,造就了文学在时间和空间上的差异性。边界的影响还渗透到墨西哥裔美国人的心理层面,使他们与白人之间产生心理隔阂,这种隔阂甚至在墨西哥裔美国人的亚文化群体之间同样存在。实际上,在墨西哥北部领土割让给美国之前,这里已经经历过西班牙人对美洲土著人的殖民征服,其文化已经融合了土著文化和西班牙殖民文化,土著居民的万物有灵论和西班牙人的天主教信仰奇妙地结合在一起。作为墨西哥的保护神以及墨西哥人与奇卡诺人民族身份象征的瓜达卢佩圣母就体现了这种结合。这片土地并入美国版图之后再次经历了殖民过程和二次文化杂糅,所以其文学表征体现出三重的文化影响,即美洲土著文化、西班牙文化和盎格鲁美国文化,这些文化要素不同程度的杂糅使奇卡诺文学在不同历史时期、不同地域呈现出不同的特征。西班牙语与和英语之间的语言障碍以及经济剥削导致的边界冲突使早期墨西哥裔美国文学处于“无形”的地位。尽管歌颂“枪在手上”的边界英雄的科瑞多民谣深受人们喜爱,但这类歌谣属于文学再现中的抗争模式,因而受到统治阶级的鄙视和压制。民权运动标志着奇卡诺文学的一个繁荣时期。“奇卡诺精神”成为文学再现的重要源泉,书写奇卡诺经历也成为反抗美国文学中白人中产阶级权威的另外一种文学话语。从文体角度来说,奇卡诺作家尝试多种文学体裁,采用西方传统文学形式表现奇卡诺主题,在“美国文学”阵地内部开辟了一席之地。更重要的是,奇卡娜作家发掘“哭泣的女人”和玛林琦等土著原型中的反抗意义,对其进行重新书写以达到反抗奇卡诺男权制度的目的。在此过程中,地理因素使不同地区的奇卡诺文学具有地域上的差异。理论上来讲,奇卡诺文学中有三个主要的地缘历史阵营,即得克萨斯文学、新墨西哥文学和加利福尼亚文学。具体来说,新墨西哥文学由于受西班牙文化影响时间最长,西班牙口头文化传统的痕迹因而颇为明显;得克萨斯具有独特的政治斗争历史,其文学也以反抗文化霸权和政治统治为主要特色;加利福尼亚是个移民州,讲述文化移入的各种文学叙事则集中反映了移民及其后裔的“美国化”经历。尽管如此,不论是在单个作家的创作中,还是在某个作家群体的作品中,都没有严格的分界线,并且作家往往同时讲述“奇卡诺人的成长”和“成长为奇卡诺人”的经历。这种分类方法主要为研究边疆叙事的不同方式提供一个视角,因为本文研究的出发点是单个作品对边疆概念的阐述以及这种阐述和融合性的混血儿意识的关系。第二章主要从后现代主义角度分析边疆叙事、从后殖民主义角度分析混血儿意识的杂糅特征。在当代奇卡诺文学中,作家运用多种新颖的叙事技巧来描述边界,其中最常用的有短篇小说、虚构性自传、书信体叙述等碎片式叙述文本或者去中心性的叙述方式。德博拉·卡斯蒂略把这些后现代的叙述方式称为“边界叙述”,来突出其颠覆性特征。特里·伊格尔顿把后现代主义定义为对真理、理性和宏大叙事的挑战,是一种“深奥的、去中心性的、没有根据的、自省的、谐谑性的、衍生性、折衷的以及多元性的艺术,它模糊了‘高雅’文化和‘大众’文化之间以及艺术和日常经历之间的界线”。奇卡诺文学就采用了这种跨越边界的立场,通过使用“碎片式”叙事方式解构宏大叙事的中心地位,确立多种叙事声音和多重身份,以对抗单一性的白人中产阶级男性身份规范。琳达·哈钦把后现代主义定义为差异的相互制衡,这种定义打破了西方思想体系中的二元对立,从而淡化了中心与边缘的界线。从这个意义上来说,身份等问题实际上属于话语叙事,应该从不同的角度进行描述和定义,而不仅仅是从单一的主叙事角度。奇卡诺作家尝试多种叙事技巧,以此打破叙事权威、建立对抗性话语。特别值得一提的是,格洛丽亚·安扎尔多瓦通过典型的后现代主义边疆叙事对新混血儿意识进行定义与阐述。她主张,“混血儿意识的目的就是打破束缚女性的主观与客观的二元对立,通过书中活生生的事例和生动的意象展示如何超越二元对立”。因为奇卡诺杂糅身份不能仅从单一纬度进行定义,所以这种调和性的立场可以使边疆居民灵活地理解他们身份中的不同层面。通过分析《记忆的饥渴》中叙事结构与叙事主题之间的矛盾,边疆身份的文化杂糅特征可以得到印证,因而看似接受同化的立场中包含了重构的力量。在“加利布咖啡馆”中,文化杂糅则是通过复调式叙述来表现的。这两部作品都证明,要想正确理解奇卡诺人的边疆身份,对差异的包容态度不可或缺。第三章在前一章理论分析的基础上详细研究了涉及混血儿意识的几种边疆叙事模式。本章大致以弗朗兹·法农对民族文化三个发展阶段的论述为理论支持,这三个阶段分别是同化阶段、对土著文化的想象阶段以及斗争阶段。本章主要以时间顺序为线索研究边疆叙事中两种完全不同的模式:同化模式和抗争模式。前者以两部加利福尼亚小说为例,分别是《美国化的墨西哥人》和《奇卡诺人》,来反映奇卡诺群体承受的来自主流文化的同化压力,以及墨西哥传统和美国经历之间的矛盾冲突。边疆叙事的同化模式也反映了奇卡诺意识发展的特定历史阶段,即文化对抗产生的张力弱化了奇卡诺自我的真实再现。假如没有合适的立场来和解身份中的多重因素,奇卡诺人就会陷入墨西哥文化和美国文化之间的空隙中,得不到任何一方的认可。相比之下,对抗争模式的研究以两部奇卡娜作品为例,强调女性通过重新书写墨西哥女性原型来达到构建自我身份的目的。通过采用第一人称叙述和“碎片式”叙述解构宏大叙事,奇卡娜话语获得叙述的主体性,并控制了书写的主动权。这两种模式都是对边疆身份的反思,代表了混血儿意识发展过程中的两个阶段,从不同角度证明了和解立场的必要性。第四章围绕边疆叙事中的综合模式展开。新墨西哥作家鲁道夫·阿纳亚是其中的一位代表人物,他提倡应该辩证地综合奇卡诺身份的不同成分,特别是要正确看待奇卡诺人的土著历史。阿纳亚继承了拉丁美洲文学中的“魔幻现实主义”传统,以创造神话为主要手法来反映奇卡诺经历中的文化融合特征,探索重建奇卡诺祖先的信仰的可能性,以便恢复奇卡诺文化活力,使其免于消亡。1972年,他的代表作《保佑我吧,乌勒蒂玛》出版,这对当时奇卡诺运动所倡导的抗议文学提出了挑战,并激发了奇卡诺文学界的热烈讨论,当时商榷的核心就是神话再现能否反映奇卡诺身份。阿纳亚把神话称作联系人类及其历史的“纽带”,通过神话,人们能够构建自己与历史和未来的联系,并且平衡自己的不同身份。奇卡诺神话以美洲土著神话为主,强调精神和肉体的和谐以及经历和认知的统一。卡尔·荣格认为,神话是一个群体的集体无意识,从个体层面上来说,对历史的神话再现反映了奇卡诺群体对历史的理解。从个人层面上来说,神话中所体现的智慧代表了人类心中的真情,是人类在时间长河中逐渐积淀下来的自我认识。事实上,创造神话的手法并不局限于新墨西哥作家。和解的智慧同样体现在其他两种模式之中,只不过程度不同而已。例如,在以重新定义墨西哥裔美国女性原型(如“哭泣的女人”和玛林琦)为代表的奇卡娜抗争模式中,全新奇卡娜身份的重构依赖于辩证地融合美国经历、西班牙影响以及土著历史。因此,化解矛盾冲突既渗透在安扎尔多瓦对霸权的激烈反抗之中,也体现在桑德拉·西斯奈罗斯用诗歌语言讲述奇卡娜成长的故事之中,同样还体现在德尼斯·查维斯戏剧独白式的女性寻求独立自主的颂歌之中。《保佑我吧,乌勒蒂玛》所引发的辩论远远超过了人们对单部文学作品所应有的关注,相反,这种争论验证了奇卡诺土著历史和多元文化现实之间达成和谐性和解的可能性。具体来说,《保佑我吧,乌勒蒂玛》不仅仅是对边疆身份的神话再现,而且还代表了如何明智地和解人类经历中的各种矛盾,同时也证明了边疆再现的有效性。主人公安东尼奥·马雷斯在年迈的民间游医乌勒蒂玛的引导下逐渐接受现实生活中的种种矛盾,并且主动地去理解矛盾,而不是选择逃避。这部成长小说在一定程度上可以看作奇卡诺人从纯真走向经验、从无知到有知的浪漫之旅。更重要的是,主人公理解了善恶之间的辩证关系,不再困惑于世俗的矛盾和庸俗的得失。他对差异的包容心使其成为连接生活中多层次现实的现代“萨满教士”,这种和谐性的智慧与作者阿纳亚所说的“奇卡诺意识”或“新大陆精神”相呼应,也与安扎尔多瓦的混血儿意识相映成辉。因此,《保佑我吧,乌勒蒂玛》集中代表了对边疆身份综合模式的文学书写,阿纳亚创造神话的手法融合了欧洲思想框架下的集体无意识和美洲土著神话的具体内容,而安扎尔多瓦的新混血儿意识则通过语码转换和拼贴画手法反映不同层面的现实,如同她本人所说的“剥开层层玉米皮露出其果实”。纵观边疆叙事的不同模式,综合模式还有助于前两种模式之间的平衡,它与同化模式中的文化冲突相呼应,同时反映了抗争模式中重新书写行为的必要性。对土著历史的想象实际上是一种象征性的行为,是构建自我的方式,它以辩证地看待边界双重含义为基础,即边疆既是家园,又是矛盾斗争的所在。基于以上这几章的讨论,文章得出结论:边界是当代奇卡诺文学中的重要理念,边疆风貌同样与众不同。边界概念源于墨美边界,但其影响渗透到美国生活的经济和文化表征之中。边疆叙事虽然具有不同的模式,但本质上是探索边疆概念对奇卡诺人生活和心理双重影响的话语叙事,其具体方式取决于作家不同的经历、认识及各自钟爱的技巧,也取决于奇卡诺文学诸分支在时间和空间上的差异性。后殖民主义语境下的文化杂糅身份成为一个重要的主题,它经常是通过对自我身份的碎片式叙述来体现。这种杂糅身份或者以个人的文化历史为代价被全盘接受,或者遭到强烈抵制以反抗文化霸权或父权制权威,或者以辩证理解奇卡诺身份的不同层面为基础被接纳为生活现实。这三种模式从本质上反映了奇卡诺人对自我认知的探索,只是其时间顺序有时不甚明确。格洛丽亚·安扎尔多瓦提出的新混血儿意识根植于奇卡诺土著历史,是一种综合性的立场。它以奇卡娜女权主义为基点,又延伸至奇卡诺文学书写、甚至美国文学的其他族裔话语分支;它从墨西哥裔美国人的经历出发,又着眼于全面理解多元文化的美国经历,与胡安·布鲁斯-诺瓦的“文学空间”或“创作的自由”相呼应,又同阿纳亚的“奇卡诺意识”相谐调。其中的调和性智慧萌发于奇卡诺人反抗自己附属地位的努力,并且在理解奇卡诺人边疆身份的过程中逐渐汲取营养。尽管它在同化模式和抗争模式中也有不同程度的体现,但主要包含在边疆叙事的综合模式之中。安扎尔多瓦的理论和概念阐述有助于明确奇卡诺文学在表现自我身份中所需要的调和性智慧。在美国文学的广阔背景下,混血儿意识提供了另一种思维模式:从文化杂糅的角度理解美国特性。因而,它还有助于重新定义美国文学,即美国文学具有多元文化和多种族特征,而不仅仅是单一性的中产阶级的白人男性文学。更多还原

【Abstract】 Chicano literature roughly refers to the contemporary period of Mexican American literature, covering the time span from the 1940s to the present. As early Mexican American literature is written in Spanish, it remains obscure to the majority of English-speaking readers. With the progress of acculturation and also under the influence of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Mexican American literature experiences dramatic changes in theme and techniques, with an end to represent the people’s multiple cultural experiences. And a majority of writers begin to write in English or bilingually, making the works more accessible to English-speaking readers. In this sense, the literature is both old and new, for it has been in existence longer than Anglo American literature, but it has not been widely recognized by the American mainstream reading community until half a century ago. After over one and a half centuries, Chicano literature has achieved some significant results. Literary works by Chicano writers have won prestigious national or even international prizes, and Chicano writers begin to be present at important national literary events.Chicano literature is highly heterogeneous with temporal and spatial diversities, which in turn is related to the respective histories in different Southwest states. Despite of the diversity, the relationship between Chicano culture and the mainstream American culture is one of the commonest themes. The conflict, negotiation and reconciliation of cultures have been the focuses of Chicano discourse. In contemporary Chicano literature, the concept of border is just a case in point. It becomes both a concept and trope, to represent the cultural in-between status and diaspora of Mexican Americans."Border" originally refers to the international border between Mexico and the Untied States, which is created as a result of the U.S.-Mexican War in the 1840s. Compared with the former border, this new one moves southward for thousands of miles on the part of Mexico, rending the vast northern frontier from its homeland and throwing it into the arms of the United States. Therefore, the border originally signifies the line of differences and consequent conflicts, since it cleaves the lives of those naturalized Mexican Americans into halves and renders them a hyphenated status of being Mexican-American. In the early years of border creation, the border area witnesses violent conflicts as a result of economic exploration and attempted cultural assimilation on the part of the dominant culture, and thus the border becomes a symbol of the troubled existence in American psyche. Contrary to the Anglo-American expectation to assimilate the ethnic Mexican American culture with the border as a baffle-wall to block Mexican force from the south, the border finally becomes a pore chain to osmosize mutual influences. Gradually, with the mutual flow of people and goods, the cultural influence of the border extends far beyond the border areas. Various expressions of the border and cultural negotiations facilitated by its existence constitute the vigorous landscape of the borderland. In retrospect of the one and a half centuries of the border, the U.S.-Mexican border has become one of the most active borders in the world, partially due to its unique history and geographical peculiarity. Various border concepts, cultural conflicts and negotiations, as well as literary representations, which are made possible due to the existence of the physical border, constitute the major landscape of the borderland.Border studies originate as a branch of sociological studies with the U.S.-Mexican border as the object of study, focusing on economics, politics, history, as well as their cultural expressions. The earliest border studies begin with the creation of the present U.S.-Mexican border, starting to exert their influences in the early 20th century, and booming into full swing in the first half of the 20th century. From the early 1980s, under the influence of cultural studies, literary border studies branch from the old style of sociological border studies, to concentrate on the literary expression of the border concept. The late Chicana scholar Gloria Anzaldúa is one of the most prominent theorists on literary border theory. In her masterpiece Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. she establishes the framework of literary border studies, and more significantly, puts forward the notion of mestiza consciousness, a tolerant position to embrace various identities and to combine them into a new force. This "tolerance for ambiguity" is representative in borderland narratives of contemporary Chicano literature, signifying the national culture of Chicano community and inspiring to American ethnic literatures. As a result, the concept of the geographic border also gets extended to various metaphoric meanings.The conceptualization of such terms as Mexican American literature and Chicano literature are resulted from the existence of these borders. Upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, the northern branch of Mexican literature is transformed into hyphenated Mexican-American literature. From about the same time, the border has been exerting its influence on the psychology of Americans, especially that of Mexican Americans. Mexican American writers provide diverse expressions of the border and its influence, to reflect cultural conflicts and people’s consequent reactions in the borderland. From the very moment of its existence, the border theme is characteristic of colonization and de-colonization. Although Mexican American literature exhibits spatial and temporal diversities, the negotiation between the Mexican American culture and Anglo American culture has been the focus of literary representation. Various borderland narratives are employed to decenter tyranny or confirm hybrid Chicano identities.This dissertation experiments on establishing a framework of borderland studies in Chicano literature. It is designed to study various modes of Chicano and Chicana narratives anchored in Chicano cultural hybridity, with the metaphor "borderland" as the focus. Border is more than a physical entity, but a psychological and literary expression as well. It signifies differences, barriers and misunderstandings, but also possibilities of communication and prospects of understanding, which constitute the landscape in the borderland. Although writers have widely explored the implication of the border concept in literary creations, and scholars have extensively studied the literary applications of the border notion, critical studies mostly use the border as a trope. Therefore, systematic researches with border studies as the framework are comparatively scarce. The dissertation tries to study the border both as an entity and a trope, to trace the cultural extension of the border concept and its influence on the Chicano psyche. By extending the concept of "border" to the "borderland", it tries to explicate the extensive and flexible implications of the border concept. By studying various forms of border-crossings, it intends to approach the vigorous and colorful borderland of literary representation from various perspectives. By studying diverse borderland narratives as discursive representations, it seeks to reach an overall understanding of contemporary Chicano literature by tracing its growth from earlier invisibility to modern indelibility. By challengeing the binary position in former border studies on Chicano literature, it attemps to use a ternary framework to prove the permeability of the border and border representation. The first chapter provides an comprehensive study of border studies and the development of Chicano literature in relation to the existence of borders. Originally, the "border" in border studies simply refers to international borders, both the borderline and the frontier along the borderline. Gradually, the connotation extends to metaphorical meanings, to include figurative borders, such as ethnics, class, gender and sexuality. Due to this complicity, border studies are therefore highly inclusive and characteristic of multi-layered and heterogenous features. Just in the narrow sense of culture, border studies involve linguistics, sociology, anthropology, painting, music, literature, history and other branches of social science, in which the concept of border is significant. The diversity of the border facilitates the existence of borders within borders and a profound understanding of the concept helps critics to focus on in-group diversities in literary expressions. On the other hand, it helps to expand the scope of border studies to the study of American literature in general, or comparative studies of Latin American literature and American Latino literature, or between various American ethnic literatures.For Chicano literature specifically, border not only obscures Mexican American literature as a whole in the early times, but also creates obvious geocultural diversities within Chicano literature. In addition to the international border that marks the colonization of former Mexicans into Mexican Americans, in-group borders come into existence and help to facilitate spatial and temporal literary diversities. Borders push forward to penetrate into Mexican American psyche, to distinguish them from Anglo Americans, and even among Chicano subcultural groups. Indeed, even before the cession of Mexican north territory to the US, there had been a Spanish conquest of Native Americans. The culture is hybrid with indigenous and Spanish cultural elements, and Native American Pantheism miraculously combines with the Catholicism introduced by the Spaniards. The Virgin of Guadalupe, the matron of Mexicans and the symbol of Mexican/Chicano national identity, signifies the most perfect combination of these elements. With the mergence into the US territory, the land experiences a twice colonization and twice cultural hybridity. Literary expression is therefore characteristic of triple influences, namely, Native American, Spanish and Anglo American. Different degrees of hybridity of these elements account for different spatial and temporal features of Chicano literature. Language border between Spanish and English, together with border conflicts resulted from economic exploitation, accounts for the invisibility of early Mexican American literature. Corridos depicting the border hero "with his pistol in his hand" are popularly acclaimed. However, as a purely resistant mode of literary representation, they are despised and suppressed by the dominant. The time of civil rights movement signifies a boom of Chicano literature. Chicanismo becomes an important source of literary representation, and the writing of Chicano experiences becomes an alternative discourse to defy the middle-class white authority of American literature. Stylistically, Chicano writers experiment on various literary genres, adopting Chicano theme within Western classical forms and forcing their way into the territory of "American Literature". More significantly, Chicana writers explore the courage of resistance in such indigenous prototypes as la Llorona and la Malinche. and rewrite them to resist Chicano patriarchy. In the process, geographical factor emerges to account for spatial diversities.Theoretically, there are three major geohistorical camps in Chicano literature, namely Texas, New Mexico and California. Specifically, New Mexico has a longer history of Spanish influence, and the legacy of Spanish oral culture is more obvious; Texas has a distinct history of political conflicts and its literature is more characterized with literary resistance against tyranny and dominance; California is a state of immigrants, and stories of acculturation reflect people’s experience of "becoming American". However, there is no strict demarcation in either a single writer’s creation or in the works of different camps of writers. More often, writers elaborate on their experiences of "growing up Chicano" and "becoming Chicano" at the same time. In spite of this, the classification provides a useful perspective on different forms of borderland narratives, since the dissertation unfolds on the basis of a single work’s expression of borderland concept and its relevance to the hybrid mestiza consciousness.Chapter two mainly examines borderland narratives in the perspective of postmodernism and studies the mestiza consciousness as a hybrid identity from the perspective of postcolonialism. In contemporary Chicano literature, the border is described through various original narrative techniques, and the most frequently used include such genres as short stories, fictional autobiography, epistolary narrative and other fragmented texts or de-centered narratives. Debra Castillo defines these postmodernist narratives as "border narrative", to highlight its subversive nature. Terry Eagleton defines postmodernism as a challenge to truth, reason and grand narrative, as "depthless, decentered, ungrounded, self-reflexive, playful, derivative, eclectic, pluralistic art which blurs the boundaries between ’high’ and ’popular’ cultures, as well as between arts and everyday experience". Chicano literature takes a border-crossing position and seeks to decentralize the dominance of grand narrative, so as to establish multiple voices and in turn multiple identities in contrast to the norm of homogenous white, middle-class, male identity. Linda Hutcheon defines postmodernism as the negotiation of differences that breaks the dichotomy of Western thought and blurs the border between center and margin. In this sense, such notions as identity becomes a discursive discourse, to be defined from various perspectives instead of a single privileged master narrative.Chicano writers experiment on these techniques to break down narrative authority and to set up an oppositional discourse. Especially significant is Gloria Anzaldúa’s theorization of the new mestiza consciousness through a typical borderland narrative in the form of postmodernist writing. She advocates that, "The work of mestiza consciousness is to break down the subject-object duality that keeps her a prisoner and to show in the flesh and through the images in her work how duality is transcended". Since Chicano hybrid identity can not be defined from a single dimension, this synthetic position helps border dwellers to adopt shifting perspectives to understand various aspects of their identities. A structuralist analysis of Hunger of Memory may prove Chicano identity as cultural hybridity, which is seemingly assimilative yet profoundly reconstructive. In "The Cariboo Cafe", the cultural hybridity is reflected through the employment of heteroglossia. In both cases, a reasonable recognition of Chicano borderland identities necessitates some degree of patience with differences.Based on the theoretical analysis of the former chapter, Chapter three provides a detailed study of the diverse modes of borderland narratives negotiating with mestiza consciousness. Loosely based on Franz Fanon’s theorization of the three phases of national culture, namely, the assimilative phase, the imagination of indigenous past, and the fighting phase, it follows a temporal sequence to study two oppositional modes of borderland narratives: the assimilating mode and the resistant mode. The former takes two works of Californian writers as examples: Pocho and Chicano. to reflect the assimilative pressure from the dominant culture, as well as the conflict between Mexican tradition and American experiences. This assimilative mode of borderland narratives also reflects the specific historical evolution of Chicano consciousness, when the tension of cultural contestation overshadows the realistic representation of Chicano self. Without a sound attitude to reconcile multiple identities, Chicanos will fall between the dominant American culture and Mexican culture, and will be rejected by both. In comparison, the resistant mode exemplifies two Chicana works to foreground the Chicana rewriting of Mexican (American) female stereotypes to reconstruct Chicana identity. By adopting first-person narration and through fragmented structure to decenter the grand narrative, Chicana discourse gains subjectivity and takes the autonomy of narration under control. Both these two modes are reflective of Chicano borderland statuses, and are both representatives of the two stages in the development of the mestiza consciousness. They illustrate from different aspects the necessity of a reconciliatory position.Chapter four explores the synthetic mode of borderland narratives. New Mexican writer Rudolfo Anaya is one of the representatives to advocate the dialectic synthesis of various Chicano identities, especially the recognition of the Chicano’s indigenous past. Anaya follows the Latin American literary tradition of "magical realism" to reflect the cultural synthesis in Chicano experiences, and uses mythopoetics as the basic technique, with an attempt to reestablish the covenants of Chicano ancestors and to restore the splendor of Chicano culture from extinction. The publication of Bless me, Ultima in 1972 signifies a big challenge to the protest literature advocated by the Chicano Movement, and arouses hated debates on the validity of the mythical representation of Chicano identity. Anaya regards myth as people’s "umbilical connection" to their past, through which people can establish a connection between their past and future, and then compromise their diverse identities. Chicano myth is mainly Native American, and it stresses the totality of spirit and body, and the harmony of experience and knowledge. According to Carl Jung who advocates mythology as the collective unconscious of a people, the reconstruction of mythical past reflects an understanding of history for the Chicano community. On the individual level, the wisdom embodied in the mythology represents the truth in human hearts, the sediment of self-knowledge collected through the passage of time. In fact, mythopoetics is not peculiar to New Mexican writers. The wisdom of synthesis is embodied in different degrees in the other two modes as well, although not that obviously. More specifically, in the resistant mode of Chicana reinterpretation of Mexican American stereotypes, such as la Malinche and la Llorona. the reconstruction of new Chicana identity depends on the dialectical synthesis of the American experience, the Spanish influence and the indigenous past. Therefore, the synthesis of conflicts is impregnate in Anzaldúa’s radical resistance against tyranny, in Cisneros’s lyric account of Chicana growth, as well as in Denise Chavez’s monologic celebration of Chicana effort to autonomy and independence.The dispute focusing on the mythic reconstruction of Chicano indigenous past aroused by Bless Me. Ultima is far beyond the debate over a specific novel. Instead, it exemplifies the feasibility of a harmonious negotiation between Chicano indigenous past and multicultural present. Specifically, Bless Me. Ultima is more than an example of the mythical representation of Chicano borderland status. It is also representative of a wise reconciliation of conflicts in human experience, and is illustrative of the effectiveness of borderland representations. The protagonist Antonio Márez, under tutelage of the old curandera Ultima, accepts the various conflicts as the reality of his life, and chooses to understand them instead of escaping from them. This bildungsroman in some degree represents a Chicano odyssey from innocence to experience and from ignorance to knowledge. More significantly, the protagonist understands the dialectic relationship between good and evil, and transcends the mundane conflicts and vulgar concerns. His tolerance for differences shapes him into a modern "shaman" to connect different dimensions of reality. This wisdom of harmony echoes the author Anaya’s "Chicano consciousness", or "the New World view", and it is a twin of Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness. Bless. Me. Ultima is thus a typical fictitious writing of the syncretic mode of borderland status, in resonance with Gloria Anzaldúa’s theoretical elaboration. Anaya’s mythopoetics combines European framework of collective unconscious and Native American content of mythology, while Anzaldúa’s new mestiza consciousness revealed through code-switching and collage reflects different layers of realities as if she is "peeling open layers of corn husks to expose the core".Taken as the different modes of Chicano borderland narratives as a whole, the synthetic mode also helps to negotiate and balance the former two modes. It resonates with the cultural conflicts foregrounded in the assimilative mode, and the validity of redefinition in the resistant mode. The imagination of the indigenous past is in essence a symbolic effort to constitute a self based on the dialectic understanding of binary effects of borders: borderlands as homes and borderlands as conflicts.Based on the discussion conducted in these chapters, the dissertation comes to the conclusion that, the border is an important notion in contemporary Chicano literature, and borderland a spectacular place. The border concept originates from the physical U.S.-Mexican border, and gets permeated all through economic and cultural expressions in American life. Borderland narratives, in diverse modes of representations, in fact constitute a discursive discourse to explore the influence of borders in Chicano life and psyche. Its various modes depend on individual writers’ experiences, knowledge and preferred techniques, and also on the temporal or spatial diversities of Chicano literature. The postcolonial representation of cultural hybridity, frequently in the form of the postmodernist representation of fragmented self, becomes a significant theme of description. The hybridity is either accepted unconditionally at the cost of cultural past, or resisted as the challenge to hegemony or patriarchy, or celebrated as a reality with the dialectical negotiation and cultural reconciliation of various aspects of Chicano identity. The three modes in fact indicate the process of Chicano exploration for self-knowledge, although not necessarily in a clear-cut temporal sequence sometimes.The new mestiza consciousness advocated by Gloria Anzaldúa typically illustrates the syncretic position based on the recognition of various Chicano identities. In some degree, it embodies the mature self-understanding of Chicanismo. It is originally Chicana feminism-orientated, but gets extended to Chicano writing, or even other ethnic American discourses; it is Mexican-American-based, but is employed to understand American multicultural experiences in general. It is compatible with Juan Bruce-Novoa’s "literary space" and "freedom of creation", or Anaya’s "Chicano consciousness". Its syncretic wisdom buds from the Chicano effort to resist secondary status and gets nurtured by the gradual understanding of Chicano borderland experiences. Although it has been indicated in the assimilative mode and the resistant mode in different degrees, it is mainly embodied in the synthetic mode of borderland narratives. Gloria Anzaldúa’s theorization and conceptualization helps to clarify its syncretic wisdom that Chicano literature needs for an effective self-representation.In the broader background of American literature, the new mestiza consciousness provides an alternative way to understand the Americanness as cultural hybridity. In turn, it helps to redefine American literature as multicultural and multiethnic, no longer the homogeneous "middle-class white male" culture.更多还原