文学与世界性想象:论《美国在心中》和《众生之一》中的离散再现和想象性世界主义（英文）

Literature and Cosmopolitan Imaginings: On the Diasporic Representation and Imaginary Cosmopolitanism in America is in the Heart and “One out of Many”

当代著名菲裔美国作家兼诗人卡洛斯·布洛桑的成名代表作《美国在心中》甫一出版便引起美国文坛和学界的热切关注。这部半自传式的菲裔移民作家的在美经历书写,同时也奠定了布洛桑在菲裔美国作家中不可撼动的经典地位。本文试图以英国诺贝尔获奖作家奈保尔的短篇小说《众生之一》作对比,试论布洛桑在《美国在心中》中所描绘勾勒的美国梦的虚幻性,以及世界性普世价值在一个以白人为主流的美国社会(WASP)中对少数族裔的潜移默化影响和其实质性的文化霸权主义。卡洛斯的理想美国社会内化了白人主流意识,同时又带有明显的性别政治色彩,此点可从书中主人公对待来自不同族裔女性的态度上显现。文章指出布洛桑的这种同化性的"美国梦"不能作为完美的应对策略来解决诸如《众生之一》里的小人物主人公桑托什关于移民的困惑,并解释其在美遭遇的诸般失败。因而卡洛斯·布洛桑在其代表作中所表现的不过是一种世界性想象,作者通过文学性想象所勾勒出来的世界主义社会正是菲裔在美实际经历的反照,揭示了菲裔等少数族裔在美的苦难遭遇和生命体验,同时也饱含了卡洛斯对少数族裔未来美好生活的一份期许和希冀。

America is in the Heart(1946),the debut novel written by the contemporary Filipino American writer and poet Carlos Bulosan,has aroused heated discussion since its publication among the literary circles within and without America.This semi-autobiographical novel provides a lens to the early Filipino immigrants’life in the United States,and secures a shrine for Carlos Bulosan in the Philippine American writers as well as Asian American writers.This paper attempts to use“One out of Many,”a short story by V.S.Naipaul,as the foil and contrasts it with America is in the Heart so as to pinpoint the fantasy and illusion of the American dream depicted by the writer in the novel.In a main WASP American society,the universal values are actually substantial cultural hegemony for the minority groups.In addition,Carlos Bulosan somehow internalizes the white consciousness and shows a distinct and colored gender prejudice in his narration,which can be seen from the different attitudes towards Filipino and American women respectively.Besides,the paper points out that assimilation cannot be offered as a strategy to solve the problem and explain the failure of Santosh,the average man among the great immigrants in“One out of Many.”Thus the cosmopolitan world of socialism and brotherhood is nothing more than an imagination.Nevertheless,through the literary imagination,Bulosan is capable of depicting the bitter life experienced by Filipino immigrants and other ethnic minorities in the United States,and at the same time,it also reflects the promising and hopeful expectation that the author has in the future for his ethnic group.