合众国的黑暗面:《英岛》中的政治隐喻

The Dark Side of the Republic: Political Allegories in Melville’s “The Encantadas”

麦尔维尔的短篇小说《英岛》具有极强的政治隐喻性。它创作于美国企图吞并加拉帕戈斯群岛的历史节点,不仅暗中回应了19世纪四五十年代美国政治家与文学家热衷讨论的美国版图扩大问题,而且还隐含着作者对美国例外主义的批判。麦尔维尔在小说中仿拟了美国例外主义的宗教和政治话语,揭示了美国向包括加拉帕戈斯群岛在内的太平洋和南美洲扩张的企图,并通过多处隐喻揭露了美国扩张主义的罪恶行径与无望未来。

Herman Melville’s "The Encantadas" is in essence a political allegory. Created in the historical context of America’s attempt to annex the Galápagos Islands, it not only responds to the issue of American expansionism widely discussed among politicians as well as literary fgures in the 1840 s and 1850 s but implicitly indicts American exceptionalism beneath those territorial acquisitions. In "The Encantadas," Melville parodies the exceptionalist discourse both in religion and in politics, criticizes America’s ambition to control the Pacific and to administer the southern hemisphere, and suggests through multiple allegories the self-destruction of American expansionism.