【作者】 崔媛媛；

【导师】 单俊毅；

【作者基本信息】 华东师范大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2008， 硕士

【摘要】 从第一部小说《最蓝的眼睛》开始,美国黑人女作家托妮·莫里森就显示出对黑人文化/身份敏锐的自我意识,思考白人文化占主流的美国社会中黑人个体的经历、社区的演变和整个群体在白人主流文化及价值体系冲击下的文化困境和出路。在其作品中,她努力为非裔美国人开拓自己的一片空间,并思考在后奴隶制、后殖民语境下的美国,黑人文化如何生存,黑人优秀传统如何保持并传承下去。本文以后殖民理论为理论出发点和研究方法,探究在莫里森两部代表作《所罗门之歌》和《宠儿》中体现出的黑人文化解殖民主题,指出黑人个体、家庭、社区、文化等被奴隶制和主流文化霸权摧残、破坏、侵蚀的情况下,黑人个体对自我身份的确认和黑人社区重建稳固性的努力是两个关键、不可缺少的步骤:在解殖民的过程中,黑人不能失去自我,但也不能在追寻自我的过程中抛弃社区。后殖民理论兴起于20世纪中叶的西方文论界,是多种文化政治理论和批评方法的一种集合性话语。它与后现代理论相呼应,继承其摈弃中心、摈弃权威和倡导多元文化研究的精神,旨在考察昔日欧洲帝国殖民地的文化(文学、政治、历史等)以及这些地区与世界其他地区的关系。通过分析前殖民地主体在前殖民帝国政治、经济、文化等一系列统治和霸权政策下失去主体身份及意识、进而沦为“他者”的过程,萨义德等理论家将权力与文学文本及话语联系起来,指出前殖民地主体文化失语的过程实际上是西方前殖民帝国以二元对立的普遍认知模式,将“自我”身份的确立和优越感建立在对他们否定和丑化的基础上。而对这些前殖民地主体身体的控制与迫害与对其语言及思想的禁锢是紧密结合的。后殖民理论近来拓展到了对美国少数族裔“内部殖民”问题的研究,而以莫里森为代表的1970年代至今的美国黑人女作家群也一直在努力重构很大程度上被主流社会抹去或淡化的美国黑人历史和文学史,重构以往作品中被“模式化”、带有种族偏见的黑人形象,在浸润着非洲文化传统、富有视觉意象和音乐特质的语言载体下,探索现代非裔美国人的文化困境,并提出自己的建议。而这些文学文本本身就是她们重构美国文学史和经典的集合性话语,是一种文化策略。国内外研究莫里森的专著和论文颇多,但涉及文化抵抗、特别是对《宠儿》中这一主题的挖掘不多,所以做此尝试。而运用后殖民理论的思路来探讨这两部作品将帮助我们深入理解作家的文化立场和文本策略,并更好地理解现当代美国文学和美国历史。除去理论、历史背景介绍和结论部分,论文主体共分为三章,分别以“奴隶制、白人文化霸权和对非裔美国人的‘内部殖民’”、“确立自我”和“重建社区稳固性”为题,来探讨两部小说中的文化解殖民主题。更多还原

【Abstract】 My paper tends to explore the theme of cultural decolonization developed in the two novels Song of Solomon (1977) and Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison, a famous African American female writer, editor and literary professor.In fact, ever from her first novel The Bluest Eye (1970), Morrison has demonstrated a unique cultural self-awareness and kept thinking on black experiences in the dominant white society. Through her works she strives to create a space for African American culture within the dominant one and to constantly search for ways in which black people can best survive and preserve their culture & identity in postcolonial America. It is pointed out that Morrison sees writing as an intervention against the cultural anonymity imposed upon African American people by the dominant white society. Believing that Song of Solomon and Beloved best embody her thinking about conditions of African American culture, I find that Morrison’s cultural stance can be ascertained through her emphasis on the importance for individual blacks to affirm their African American selfhood and for the black community to rebuild their communal & cultural solidarity. Affirming selfhood and rebuilding communal solidarity are both crucial strategies in the process of cultural decolonization and we cannot over-emphasize the one while ignoring the other.The introduction part of my thesis gives a brief introduction about Toni Morrison and her works, and the literary tradition behind and social contexts for her writing. The significance of adopting the postcolonial perspective in the textual analysis is also discussed and the postcolonial criticism is given an overall introduction as well.The first chapter presents basic theoretical frameworks on which the research is based: Franz Fanon and Antonio Gramsci’s thinking on the colonized people’s condition in political, cultural and psychological aspects, and Orlando Patterson’s analysis of slavery as an institution and its damages to African American individuals, communities and culture, with various demonstrations in the novels. Contributions by these two novels to both the form and content of African American slave narrative tradition are also briefly discussed.Chapters two and three analyze the two crucial strategies of cultural decolonization reflected in the two novels: affirming selfhood and rebuilding communal solidarity, and the intimate relationship between individual blacks and their community in this process. Five protagonists—Milkman and Pilate in Song of Solomon, Sethe, Paul D and Baby Suggs in Beloved—and their respective struggles to affirm selfhood and group efforts to rebuild the once-broken communities are given detailed discussion.In the conclusion part, we reach the point that individuals and their family histories are embedded in their people’s history and the process of cultural decolonization by African American people can be best realised within the contexts of their communities and culture.更多还原