白皮肤、白面具——《藻海无边》中的身份认同障碍

Identity Crisis in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea

本文聚焦《藻海无边》中男女主人公的身份认同障碍,通过解读安托瓦内特既无法与白人认同亦无法与黑人认同的身份困境,以及罗切斯特在加勒比殖民地经历的认同障碍,揭示白皮肤之下克里奥尔身份与宗主国白人男性殖民者身份的虚幻本质。文章指出,吉恩·里斯在《藻海无边》中的重写实践不仅暴露了隐藏于西方现代殖民权力/知识话语内部身份障碍的结构性因素——主/奴二元对立思维模式,同时呼应了主/奴辩证哲学的后现代转向。

Focusing on the identity crisis undergone by Antoinette Cosway and Edward Rochester in Wide Sargasso Sea,this paper illustrates the phantasmatic nature of white identity.As a white Creole,Antoinette can identify herself neither as white nor black,while Rochester also suffers from severe physical,psychological and cultural alienation in Caribbean colonies that ultimately leads to his troubled sense of identity.Therefore, Jean Rhys’ s representation of Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea not only challenges the misrepresentation of Bertha in Jane Eyre,but also exposes the performative masks of white European male colonists.Most importantly,Rhys’ s counter-discoursive practice in Wide Sargasso Sea illustrates the structural violence of the Master/Slave relationship embedded in Western colonial power/knowledge discourse,modeling a postmodern reading of the Master/Slave dialectic.