跋涉于泥泞中的“爱”

“Love” Trudging in Mud

2003年10月出版的莫里森的最新小说<爱>(Love)被誉为"从痴迷、奴役到解放的优美史诗",是她"写作的巅峰".作者对二战以来,尤其是民权运动后的种族和性别问题进行了深刻的再思考,作品中一些事件甚至发生在1990以后.对爱的本质的剖析和探索是莫里森创作的主题之一,在<爱>中作者通过对爱的本质的多方位的思考,表现了当代黑人,特别是黑人女性的命运和生存状态,她们对美好爱情的追求、对幸福家庭的渴望以及在元爱和无性的婚姻中的挣扎.本文将以女主人公"灰姑娘"希德的婚姻和人生经历、她对爱情和幸福从幻想、幻灭到绝望的艰难泥泞的情感历程为主线,揭示黑人女性追寻自由、幸福和爱情的权利如何在种族和性别的压迫下被抹煞和剥夺,从而再次唤起读者对黑人女性生存状况的关注,对美国种族歧视和压迫等社会问题的思考.

Morrison's latest novel Love is acclaimed as “a beautiful epic from obsession, slavery to liberation”, and as “the peak of her writing” when published in October 2003. The author contemplates on racial and gender problems after the Second World War, especially after the Civil Rights Movement. Some events involved in the novel happened after 1990. The analysis of essence of “love” goes through Morrison's literary creation. Once again through her contemplation on various aspects of love, the author represents the fate and existence of the contemporary African-Americans, particularly the black women, whose quest for freedom, love and family as well as their struggle in the marriages without love or sex. Centered around the heroine Heed's marriage and life experience, taken Heed's illusion, disillusion and desperation for love and marriage as the main clue, this paper exposes the deprival of the black females' rights for happiness and love by males and arouses our attention to the existence of the black women as well as our consideration upon the racial discrimination and oppression in America today.