身份与象征:解读斯皮格曼的《鼠族》

Identity and Representation— Reading Art Spiegelman's Maus

美国犹太作家、漫画家、普利策奖获得者阿特·斯皮格曼的《鼠族》运用象征手法,采用猫、鼠、猪等动物形象分别代表并生动描绘了二战大屠杀中的德国纳粹、犹太人以及波兰族人的不同身份和特征。作者运用动物形象规避了犹太幸存者和幸存者后代的身份所带来的历史沉重感和隔膜感,在更广泛意义上进行了身份的重构,增加了作品的可理解度和接受度,同时赋予作品独特的艺术魅力、感染力和思想性,使作品达到历史性的思想高度和艺术高度,并成为大屠杀文学史、漫画界以及文学界的经典之作。本文旨在深入探讨斯皮格曼的《鼠族》中身份的规避和重构、象征手法的运用以及作者对于幸存者后代的伤痛、自我身份和自我认识的探寻,揭示其中的艺术特色和思想意义。

Art Spiegelman, an American Jewish cartoonist, writer, and the special Pulitzer Prize winner, in his masterpiece Maus Skillfully applies the artistic technique of representation, using images of the cat, the mouse and the pig to represent respectively the German Nazis, the Jews and the ethnic Poles during the Second World War, reconstructing their identity and vividly depicting their characteristics. This essay explores how the author, by adopting the images of the animals, avoids the negative influences of the former Survivor identity and manages to redefine the identity of the Jews as well as the German Nazis and the ethnic Poles, so as to reveal the artistic and thought-provoking features and values of Maus.