《他们眼望上苍》的民间狂欢节因素探讨

Title: Carnivalism in Their Eyes Were Watching God

虽然赫斯顿的《他们眼望上苍》对种族歧视、性别歧视以及种族内部的不平等有深刻的揭露,但小说的意义并不仅限于此。作品通过民间狂欢的形式表达了对等级森严的官方世界的反抗和对众生平等的乌托邦世界的向往。本文从三个方面探讨这部小说中的民间狂欢节因素:全民平等的狂欢广场、加冕脱冕的狂欢节主题和狂欢节上死亡的双重意义;进而显示了作者对人类自身生存状态的关照和对生死大事的思考。

The treatment of the racial discrimination, sex discrimination, and inequality among the blacks in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God remains the focus of the critics. Yet, it cannot be ignored that the author expresses her longing for a utopian world through carnivalism, which is opposed to the hierarchical official world. To reveal Hurston's thoughts on living status of the human itself, the paper studies the carnivalesque elements of the fiction in three aspects: equality on the carnivalesque square, the theme of promotion and demotion in the carnival, and the double implication of death in the carnival.