论《向苍天呼吁》中的种族主义记忆

On Traumatic Racial Memory in Go Tell it on the Mountain

非裔美国作家鲍德温的半自传体小说《向苍天呼吁》,聚焦第一代哈莱姆家庭的种族抗争和生存境遇问题,是表现非裔-美国经验最有影响力的小说之一。本文从种族主义对个体性格及命运影响的角度出发,以小说主要人物加布里埃的种族主义创伤为论述中心,并生发到他与其他家庭成员纷繁复杂的爱恨情仇,分析种族主义幽灵对他们人生命运或明或暗的控制,试图阐释人物之间复杂的施害与受害关系的同时,说明种族主义记忆是造成黑人个体心灵创伤和集体悲剧命运强有力的"施害者"。

James Baldwin’s semiautobiographical fiction,Go Tell it on the Mountain,depicts the racial and spiritual struggles of a firstgeneration Harlem family,and is usually considered one of the most powerful novels presenting AfricanAmerican experience.This essay explores traumatic racial memory and its effects on the major character,Gabriel and his close family members,for the purpose of analysis of racism’s control and discipline of their identity,character and destiny directly and indirectly.In its attempt to interpret the complexity of the dynamic relationship between victim and victimizer for characters in the fiction,this essay points out that racial memory has had a very negative effect on one’s spiritual and psychological trauma individually and is also a danger for the tragedy of collective destiny for the whole black race.