《梅丽迪安》中的头发与政治

Hair and Politics in Alice Walker's Meridian

发型的演变折射了美国非裔自我认知的变化,是黑人民权斗争史的有机组成部分。艾丽丝·沃克的小说《梅丽迪安》中,人物的头发微妙地呈现了美国非裔女性面对的种族和性别政治。主人公梅丽迪安用非裔传统发型和近乎光头的中性发型表明种族身份、领导游行,反映了非裔女性利用身体对抗种族和性别双重压迫的策略及其选择困境之下的矛盾心理。艾丽丝·沃克通过非裔女性头发的种族和性属内涵揭示了白人主流文化和黑人民族主义对非裔女性身体的规训,再现非裔女性参与民权运动的历史,批判了黑人民族主义话语把群体集体化、抹杀非裔内部差异的弊病,从而推进黑人美学从单一走向多元的表达。

The transformation of hair, as part of the Civil Rights Movement, reflects the identity shift of the African American. Hair in Meridian by Alice Walker represents race and gender politics with which African American women are confronted in a subtle way. The protagonist Meridian showes her self-esteem as an African American with her braids and acts as a leader with her short hair, which signifies the strategies African American women use to rebel against racial and gender oppression and the dilemma they encounter. Through the narrative of everyday life such as hair style under the social background of the Civil Rights Movement in 1960 s, Alice Walker reveals the discipline on the body of African American women by dominant white culture and the parochialism of black nationalist discourse, represents the participation of African American women in the Civil Rights Movement and moves the black aesthetic agenda forward from a monolithic and race-centered model to diversity.