《人的污点》中美国民族认同主题解析

American Identification in Philip Roth's The Human Stain

菲利普·罗斯的小说《人的污点》采用新现实主义的叙事手法,生动地再现了美国历史上民族身份与国家认同之间的权力矛盾和话语张力。小说以"性"开篇,一方面旨在呈现美国社会族群身份和美国民族身份彼此相容的和谐状态,另一方面意在暗示美国民族身份的生成性。小说中现实与想象、写实与虚拟边界的模糊性和不确定性进一步揭示了美国民族身份始终处于一种流动、变化、逐步建构的过程。

In The Human Stain, Philip Roth employs the new realistic narrative techniques, vividly representing the discursive tension and conflict between ethnic and national identities in the history of the United States. The opening sexual episode of The Human Stain is designed to present the harmonious relation between ethnic and national identities in contemporary America, and to show the constructiveness of American identity. In the novel, the boundary between what is real and what is imaginative （ or what is realistic and what is virtual） is vague and uncertain, which further reveals the fact that the national identity of America has been long in a flowing, changing and constructing state.