“文雅”之殇:《我的死对头》中后拓荒时代的替代者危机

The Illusion of the “Genteel”: The Anxiety of Pioneering Influence and Identity Crisis in My Mortal Enemy

薇拉·凯瑟的小说《我的死对头》中的"死对头"的指涉对象是美国文学史上的未解之谜。若将小说置于20世纪20年代美国的历史语境中,便会发现,它超越了简单的家庭情感纠葛,呈现了美国新一代知识分子建构自我身份的意图:在后拓荒时代,知识分子试图通过"文雅"身份克服拓荒前辈的影响焦虑,却最终失败。他们将代际矛盾转移为种族矛盾,认为新移民是导致自身失败的根源,将之视为"死对头"。

The"mortal enemy"in Willa Cather’s My Mortal Enemy remains an enigma in American literary criticism.This essay argues that this novel,as a sensitive response to the cultural conflict between the pioneering tradition and the"genteel"tradition in America in the 1920 s,depicts the young intellectuals’attempt to construct an identity of their own in the post-pioneering period.Those belated intellectuals aim to halo themselves as"genteel,"only to find this identity a replica of the materialistic pioneering spirit.However,they refuse to accept this failure and blame new immigrants as root of all evils.