论华人文学中身份焦虑之成因

Silent Chinese:the Cause of Identity Anxiety in American Chinese Literature

关于"身份"的焦虑困扰着一代代在美华人,曾使之失语、沉默,甚至形成了"沉默的中国人"的群体形象。美国华人文学多层面展现了几代华人的身份焦虑及其复杂成因,涉及历史变革、文化冲突、语言差异、生存困境、情感归属等诸多因素。这已成为美华作家持续关注与表现的一个重要文学主题,它道出了被过滤的历史真相以及人们为了获得生存权利所面对的无奈选择,作为对"单一化"呈现的反抗,打破了西方人眼中源于民族劣根性与缺陷性的华人身份形象。同时,美华文学也增进了人们对于身份焦虑本身的认识,有利于更好地面对这一问题并最终完成身份建构。

Perplexed by the identity anxiety,generations of American Chinese were forced to be aphasic and silent,eventually forming agroup image of ＂silent Chinese＂.American Chinese literature demonstrates in various respects the identity anxiety suffered by several generations of Chinese immigrants and its complicated cause,which involes different factors such as historical change,cultural conflict,language difference,living predicament and affection issues.Identity anxiety has become a critical literary theme that American Chinese writers pay constant attention to and keep writing about.The theme reveals the filtered historical truth and the choice people have to make reluctantly for getting the right of survival.As a kind of resistance against the uniformity in the presenting of Chinese image,this breaks the stereotyped image of Chinese people originated from the national weaknesses and defects in the eye of westerners.At the same time,American Chinese literature also helps to further understand identity anxiety itself,which is favorable for people to better cope with such a problem and eventually to complete identity development.