生态印地安人与精神腐败的白种男人——灵达·霍根《太阳风暴》族群中心观念的功能

The Ecological Indian vs. the Spiritually Corrupt White Man: The Function of Ethnocentric Notions in Linda Hogan's Solar Storms

在《太阳风暴》(Solar Storms)这部小说中,美国原住民作家灵达·霍根(Linda Hogan)运用生态印地安人形象,重新形塑高贵的野蛮人,并将之与有害的、精神沦丧的、剥削的白人社会并置,因而强化了部落文化道德优越的族群中心观念。然而,在这篇文章中,我将指出她塑造的印地安人典型印象更为复杂,这是基于对原住民的认识,也是基于生态洞见。它提供了一种策略性的功能:是一种有意识的建构,旨在修正印地安人从历史中发展出的自卑感与边缘感,并将它们转化成尊严与自我强化的经验。就像这小说主角的例子,这会导致反对环境破坏与文化堕落的政治行动。我也将指出灵达·霍根最后呼吁如何整合两种文化,例如强调文字在美国原住民与欧美文学脉络中的功能。

In her novel Solar Storms, Native American writer Linda Hogan employs the image of the Ecologi- cal Indian, a refiguration of the noble savage, and juxtaposes it with a detrimental, despiritualized, exploitative white society, thus perpetuating ethnocentric notions of the moral superiority of tribal cultures. In this paper I will show, however, that her use of the stereotypical Indian figure is much more complex, that it is based on indigenous epistemologies as well as on ecological insights, and that it serves a strategic function： it is a conscious construc- tion aimed at revising historically developed Indian feelings of inferiority and marginality, turning them instead in- to an experience of dignity and self-empowerraent. This can, as in the case of the novel＇s main protagonist, lead to political action directed against environmental destruction as well as against cultural degradation. I will also point out how Hogan ultimately argues for an integration of both cultures, a.o. by emphasizing the creative function of words in a Native American as well as a Euroamerican literary context.