早期黑人废奴小说的“物化”景观——评布朗的《克洛泰尔》

Views of Abolition in Early Black Fiction:A Study of Clotel by W.W. Brown

《克洛泰尔》是一部典型的"废奴小说",以揭露奴隶制和控诉奴隶主暴行为写作目的。美国奴隶制社会的制度性物化亵渎了人性和社会伦理,践踏了"一切人生而平等"的建国宗旨,讽刺了杰弗逊等建国之父为代表的国家道德虚伪。亲情关系物化、黑人同胞关系物化和主仆关系物化是人际关系物化的直接表征;白人物化实施者在物化黑奴的同时,也物化了自己。人性的回归是社会物化和人际关系物化的克星,也是消解物化的必经之道。该小说对种族越界和政治悖论等问题的探索对21世纪黑人小说的发展也有着不可低估的重要影响。

Clotel is a typical abolitionist novel based on revelation of slavery and denouncement of the evils of slavers.The institutionalized reification of American slavery overrode the human nature and social ethics,ridiculed the state moral hypocrisy represented by the founding fathers such as Jefferson,and simultaneously tramples on the state-establishing gist of 'All men are created equal'.The reification of familial relation,black fellow relation and master-servant relation are the direct token of interpersonal reification.Whites reify themselves while reifying black slaves.Therefore,the return of human nature is a powerful remedy for social reification and interpersonal reification,and the best way to overcome the reification.The topics of ethnic passing and political paradoxes in the novel has exerted essential influence on the development of black novel in the 21st century.