论《上海孤儿》中“帝国神话”的建构和宰制

On the Construction and Oppression of “Imperial Mythology” in When We Were Orphans

当代英国日裔作家石黑一雄在其长篇小说《上海孤儿》中通过考察帝国神话的生产和运作,消解了权力中心话语外部神圣的光环。帝国神话的建构其核心要义就是建立一个中心与边缘、宗主国与边缘国的区隔,使其对异域空间和文化的侵夺合理化、合法化和崇高化。这一标榜为"真理"的话语常常会向其他形式的话语施加一种压力和一种规约的权力,最终产生排斥的效果,并且排斥方式比较隐蔽,不易察觉。在石黑一雄看来,帝国神话这一权力中心话语并非是永恒不变的,而是一直处于建构过程中的,因而它可以被质疑和谴责,也可以被颠覆和推翻。

In When We Were Orphans, the famous contemporary Japanese-British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro clears up the glory of the powerful central discourse by analyzing the production and operation of imperial mythology. The core meaning of constructing imperial mythology is building the quarantine between the centre and the border, the suzerain and the marginal states, making the westerners＇ invasion of foreign lands and culture rational, legal and lofty. That discourse labeled as truth generally imposes a pressure or conventional power upon other discourses and finally brings about an invisible effect of exclusion difficult to detect. Kazuo Ishiguro thinks the imperial mythology, as a powerful central discourse, is not constant but a matter of change in construction. Thus it can be questioned and condemned; it can be subverted and overthrown.