《王孙梦》中的跨种族身份叙事

Transracial Narrative in Sinclair Lewis's Kingsblood Royal

辛克莱.刘易斯其后期创作的《王孙梦》中聚焦美国社会中的种族问题,以主人公聂尔为主要描写对象,表达了对种族问题的强烈关注和深刻的政治洞见。小说紧紧围绕聂尔的跨种族身份叙事,叙说种族身份如何影响甚至入侵个体生活的现象,冷静地审视了美国种族问题给人们带来的毒害,指出聂尔寻找家族血缘皇室性的过程就是他不断摆脱"白人身份"所赋予的荣耀和光环并把黑人重新当作真正意义上的人的过程,也是聂尔设法还原"白人身份"以本来面目的过程。本文拟从文化和心理层面上动态地揭示出刘易斯赋予聂尔这一人物更为深刻的思想内涵,旨在探讨刘易斯在此作品中的意识形态倾向。

Sinclair Lewis was not only an important novelist,but also an outstanding social observer and critic.He dealt with different social issues of American society in his works and his writing apparently combined the exploring and critical features.Kingsblood Royal,which was written in Lewis＇s later years,embodies his insight into the issue of race in American society,tracing the moral transformation of Neil Kingsblood.Neil firstly believed that his family tree was covered with royal ancestors but finds,to his distress,that he is a direct descendant of a 100 percent Negro adventurer.During this course,Neil discovers the corruption of the White and the virtue of the suffering Black,and achieves his salvation by renouncing his whiteness.The present paper,therefore,attempts to explore how Lewis fulfills this purpose in the fiction by means of careful characterization of Neil from the cultural and psychological perspectives,so as to reveal Lewis＇s ideological tendency in this work.