“常态的霸权”:《灶神之妻》的失能叙事研究

“Normal Hegemony”: A Narrative Study of the Loss of Functions in The Kitchen God’s Wife

谭恩美第二部受评论界和读者广泛关注和赞誉的小说《灶神之妻》中关注了社会中的失能人物,其典型人物为文福。对《灶神之妻》进行重新细读发现,谭恩美创作的程式化人物文福是一个身心失能的人,他的身体失能对应的常态是身体健康的吉米;他的精神失能对应的常态是历尽苦难的雯妮。个体的常态或失能同时隐喻其所在国家的常态或失能状态。“常态的霸权”在常态与失能的对照中一览无余。谭恩美在小说中为失能的中国社会开出了走向常态的药方,但她没有意识到生活在美国的华裔同样可能面临失能的困扰。

In The Kitchen God’s Wife, a novel widely noticed and praised by the critical world and the readership, Amy Tan is concerned with people who have lost their functions, a representative being Wen Fu. A careful reading of the novel reveals that Wen Fu, her stylised character, is someone who has experienced both spiritual and physical loss. The contrasting physical normal one is the healthy Jimmy whereas the contrasting spiritual normal is Winnie who has experienced much suffering. An individual’s normal state or loss of functions can simultaneously act as a metaphor for the normal state of a country or its loss of functions. Thus,‘the normal hegemony’, with its normality and loss of functions in sharp contrast, is clearly seen. Although Amy Tan has written a prescription for how the Chinese society that has lost its functions can move to normality, she does not realize that Chinese Americans living in America can face the same problem of losing their functions.