机器中的幽灵——解读文本内外的《宣叙》

The ghost in the machine: Recitatif both in and out of the text

莫里森的批评论著《在黑暗中演奏:白色与文学想象》是作家对美国经典文学长期审视和反思的结果。通过分析白人经典作品中的非裔在场,我们可以揭示出"美国性"的本质和美国"文学白色"神话的炮制过程。如果将短篇小说《宣叙》与《演奏》并置,我们可以看到故事中的麦基其实是对后者所评述的美国经典文学中非裔在场的影射。麦基这个人物的再现是反射性的,与美国经典文学对非裔人物的再现如出一辙。二者的不同在于,故事揭示并最终反拨了人物再现的内在机制。《宣叙》对美国经典文学的观照,实质上是以隐晦的手法介入美国文学的经典辩论,传达了作者文化修正的愿望。

Morrison’s critical work Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and Literary Imagination reflects her examination of and reflection on the canonical American literature. By analyzing the Africanist presence in it,she discloses the nature of "Americanness"and the fabrication of the myth of American "literary whiteness". If we juxtapose Morrison’s short story Recitatif with her Playing in the Dark,we can see it is via the figure Maggie that Morrison hints at the Africanist presence in canonical American literature,which is critiqued by the writer. In the short story,Maggie is represented in a reflexive way,just as Africanist characters are represented in canonical American literature. Their difference lies in that the story reveals and eventually undermines the underlying mechanism of such representation. Drawing a parallel between itself and canonical American literature,Recitatif gets itself,in an oblique manner,into the canon debates undergone in American literary world,conveying its author’s wish to revise American culture.