解译战后美国犹太人的沉默:辛西娅·奥兹克的《披肩》

Deciphering the Silence of Postwar American Jewry:Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl

沉默是犹太大屠杀研究的一个关键议题,而战后美国犹太社区关于大屠杀的反应至今仍是一个有争议的话题。美国犹太女作家辛西娅·奥兹克和她的代表作《披肩》为战后美国犹太社区打破沉默做出了积极的贡献。由于宗教、历史和社会政治原因,战后美国犹太社区被指责患有一种集体的“大屠杀健忘症”。奥兹克的文学创作旅程同样经历了从回避大屠杀到直面大屠杀的转变。作为奥兹克打破沉默的“文学宣言”,《披肩》以“沉默”为主题揭示了“想象的”大屠杀幸存者罗莎·卢布林在大屠杀前、大屠杀期间和大屠杀后的创伤生活的全景。本文移植了劳伦斯·兰格的“先发制人”的概念旨在重新思考战后美国犹太社区的历史语境,以及重新评价大屠杀再现的伦理问题。“先发制人”指利用犹太大屠杀作为一种人文教训来实现道德救赎或宣扬更高的价值观。为避免误入“先发制人”可能带入的歧途,奥兹克整合犹太教义的“记忆”戒律、米德拉什的叙事风格和哈西德派关于“纯粹意图”的传说独创出一种“合格”的大屠杀文学写作策略。

Silence is a crucial topic in Holocaust studies,and the response of American Jews to the Holocaust immediately after the Second World War remains a polemical issue.The Jewish American female writer Cynthia Ozick and her representative The Shawl perform a positive act of breaking the postwar silence.Due to religious,historical,and socio-political reasons,American Jews have been accused of collective Holocaust amnesia in the postwar era.Ozick has also undergone the transition from shunning the Holocaust to confronting the event steadfastly.As Ozick’s“literary manifesto”of breaking the silence,The Shawl offers the panorama of the imagined Holocaust survivor—Rosa Lublin’s traumatic life before,during,and after the Holocaust based on the thematic topic of silence.Lawrence Langer’s concept of“preempting”the Holocaust is transplanted to offer the conceptual basis for reconsidering the historical context of postwar America and reevaluating the ethics of Holocaust representation.“Preempting”the Holocaust refers to gestures that take advantage of the Holocaust as a humanistic lesson to achieve moral redemption and to promote higher values.Ozick,inheriting the Jewish doctrine of Zakhor,the midrashic style of narrative,and the Hasidic legend of“pure intention,”manages to contrive her own writing strategies for Holocaust representation without falling into the wrong path of“preempting”this unprecedented calamity in human history.