图图奥拉的后殖民批评意识——重读《棕榈酒酒徒》和《我在鬼林中的生活》

On Tutuola's Postcolonial Awareness in His The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

由于图图奥拉所受的教育有限,一直以来评论界都将他视为一位无自觉批判意识的作家。通过阅读其长篇代表作《棕榈酒酒徒》和《我在鬼林中的生活》,笔者发现,图氏在作品中表现出清晰的后殖民批评意识。一方面,在这两部小说中,图氏对传统的约鲁巴神话故事如"完美绅士"的情节进行了创造性的改写,凸显了殖民压迫和殖民剥削的场景,表达了非洲同胞在英国殖民统治下真切的异化感,赋予那些古老神话故事后殖民批评内涵;另一方面,通过对数字、技术、时间等西方文化意象以及语言的创造性误用,图氏颠覆了西方殖民主义话语的权威,将非洲的本土文化重新置于中心地位。

Owing to A. Tutuola's poor education, critics used to consider him an unconsciously critical writer.Through a close reading of his The Palm - Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, this paper, however, discovers Tutuola5 s distinctive postcolonial consciousness. In the two novels, with an innovative revision of the traditional Yoruba folktales,Tutuola highlights the scenes of colonial oppression and exploitation, voices the sober sense of alienation that Africans suffer in the colonialist Nigeria, hence he sets a postcolonial tone to his works;meanwhile, with a creative mistaking of such Western cultural elements as digits, technology, time and language, Tutuola subverts the authoritativeness of the western colonialism and restores the central position of African indigenous culture in his works.