“机械运转背后隐藏的力量”:薇拉·凯瑟小说中的多元文化情结

"The Ghost in the Machine":The Multicultural Complex in Willa Cather’s Fiction

有些学者论及凯瑟与欧洲移民朝夕相处,乃至她与印第安文明接触的经历,却并未注意到黑人对她的影响。实际上这种影响以潜文本的形式存在于她的作品中,使其结构模式有一种不拘节奏的非裔美国文化格调,与主流文化的审美原则迥然不同。对黑人文化给予美国文学的贡献进行考察,按照托尼.莫里逊的主张寻找"机械运转背后隐藏的力量",有助于我们洞悉凯瑟作品中的多元文化情结。从东欧、北欧移民的母语、印第安人的建筑到黒人音乐,诸多非英裔白人新教徒文化都对凯瑟产生潜移默化的影响,使她的作品呈现出多元文化的风采。

Some scholars comment on Willa Cather＇ s close association with immigrants from Europe, and even her contact with the Indian civilization, but scarcely notice the influence of the black people on her. In fact such an influence exists in her works as a hypotext, investing its structural mode with an Afro-American cultural ethos characteristic of its irregular rhythm, a feature which is vastly different from the aesthetic principle of the mainstream culture. An investigation of the contribution that Black culture has made to American literature or, in Toni Morrison＇ s words, searching for ＂the ghost in the machine,＂ enables us to gain an insight into the multicultural complex in Cather＇ s works. From North and East European immigrants＇ native tongues and Indian architecture to Black music, diverse non-WASP cultures exerted their subtle influence on Cather, bringing forth the multicultural features in her works.