女性与植物——珍妮特·温特森小说中植物的性别隐喻研究

Women and Plants: Plants as Gender Metaphors in Jeanette Winterson’s Novels

当代英国著名作家珍妮特·温特森的小说《橘子不是唯一的水果》、《给樱桃以性别》和《苹果笔记本》中植物意象丰富,主要分为三类:具有自然生物特点的植物意象、具有文化隐喻特征的植物意象以及被作家改写而具有性别象征意义的植物意象。植物被精心赋义既突显又掩饰了女性不可言说和不被言说的信息,这与植物的赋义者或释义者的立场和观念等密切相关,且参与女性身份重构的进程。本文通过分析三部小说中女性与植物的复杂关系,揭示作家质疑二元对立的男性霸权话语并构建女性话语体系,消解性别身份界限的愿景,从而为阐释温特森的小说文本提供了一种新思路。

Imagery of plants are abundant in Jeanette Winterson’s novels,especially in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,Sexing the Cherry and The Powerbook,which feature the biological characteristics,cultural metaphors and symbolic meanings of plants.Plants both reveal and conceal the unspeakable and unsaid female information closely related to the encoding or decoding position,and participate in reshaping female identities.The intricate relationship between plants and women as represented in the three novels questions the patriarchal hegemonic discourse,redefines the female discursive system,and demolishes the existing gender boundaries.