《献祭》中唐人街的空间书写

Space Writing of Chinatown in “Food for All His Dead”

唐人街是当代华裔美国作家赵健秀多部文学作品中的核心意象。作为首部反映华裔美国人族裔意识觉醒的文学佳作,赵健秀的短篇小说《献祭》描绘了20世纪60年代走向衰亡的旧金山唐人街。位于城市空间边缘的唐人街既是承载美国白人主流社会意识形态的空间表征,又是华人移民后代渴望出逃与背离的表征空间。以"压抑的家庭空间""疏离的社会空间"与"分裂的心理空间"为聚焦点,《献祭》刻画华裔美国青年约翰尼受困于白人主流社会的种族主义与唐人街华人家庭父权家长制权力的双重宰制,故而形成了与唐人街空间分裂矛盾的空间认知关系与心理图景,以此表征了约翰尼双重分裂的文化身份及赵健秀再现唐人街的疑难困境与批判思想的矛盾僵局。

Chinatown is the central image in contemporary Chinese American writer Frank Chin’s quite a few literary works. As the first masterpiece which reflects the awakening ethnic awareness of Chinese Americans, Frank Chin’s short story "Food for All His Dead" portrays the declining San Francisco Chinatown in the 1960 s. Located at the margin of urban space, Chinatown is the representation of space, representing the ideology of American mainstream society. Meanwhile, Chinatown is the representational space, from which the descendants of Chinese immigrants are eager to escape and depart. Focusing on "repressive family space," "estranged social space" and "split mental space," "Food for All His Dead" delineates Chinese American young man Johnny who is dominated by racism of mainstream society and patriarchal power of paternalism in Chinatown Chinese family, thus split and contradictory spatial cognitive relationship and psychological landscape come into being, which reveals Johnny’s double split cultural identity and the dilemma that Frank Chin is troubled with in representing Chinatown as well as the impasse concerning his critical views.