寻找母亲:解读《拯救溺水鱼》的大母神原型

Looking for Mother: On the Great Mother Archetype in Saving Fish from Drowning

神话—原型理论认为大母神是一切母亲形象的来源,这里的母亲具有本位和隐喻双重意义。《拯救溺水鱼》有丰富的大母神意象,其中幽灵之旅和探险之旅两条情节主线都融会于寻找母亲的主题。一方面,谭恩美通过血、乌罗伯洛斯、月亮等表征母亲的原型意象刻画叙述者寻找母亲的历程;另一方面,母亲也象征着华裔的精神家园,通过解读子宫洞、无名之地的原型意象,能体会出精神家园对华裔的意义,理解异质文化间沟通交流的重要性。

According to Mythic-Archetypal theory, the Great Mother is the source of all mother images, which carry natural and metaphorical meanings. In Saving Fish from Drowning, there are plenty of images of the Great Mother. The motif, ＂looking for mother＂, is converged from two different plotlines, the ghost＇ s searching tour and the group＇ s expeditionary tour. On the one hand, the narrator Bibi Chen＇s iourney of ＂looking for mother＂ is depicted by Amy Tan through exploring the meanings of several archetypal images （blood, Uroboros and the moon）, which are the representational archetypes of mother. On the other hand, mother symbolizes Chinese-Americans＇ spiritual home. The study on the connotation of the ar- chetypal images, Grotto of Female Genitalia and No Name Place, reveals the significance of spiritual home for Chinese-Ameri- cans and the significance of communication between heterogeneous cultures.