佐拉·尼尔·赫斯顿《他们眼望上苍》中的民俗书写

The folklore writing in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

作为民俗学家、人类学家、哈莱姆文艺复兴代表作家,佐拉·尼尔·赫斯顿是民俗学与美国非裔文学研究的热点。在其代表作《他们眼望上苍》所呈现的众多美国南方非裔民俗活动中,一种具有独特空间特征的语言民俗——"门廊谈话"贯穿小说始终,其本身也是小说主体部分赖以存在的语境。因此,本文主要聚焦"门廊谈话"与主人公珍妮之间的关系。"门廊谈话"本身既将珍妮从门廊引向她向往的宽阔的"地平线",对巴哈马民俗开放包容的态度让她感受到了快乐和自由,而对印第安人的民间智慧的偏见和无视却将她从"地平线"拉回了"门廊"。但是珍妮却又不仅仅是一个民俗活动的参与者,她有时还持有类似民俗学家一般的视野,以流动的"民"的概念纠正他人极端种族主义的思想,也能够在回到"门廊"后,与好友费奥比一起再实践"门廊谈话",并对其予以批判和反思。

As a folklorist,an anthropologist and a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance,Zora Neale Hurston has long been attracting attention from scholars of folklore and African American literature.Among some typical African-American folklore activities in the American South depicted within Hurston’s canonized Their Eyes Were Watching God,the“porch talk”—as a folkloric activity that features peculiar space—runs throughout the whole novel.Moreover,the“porch talk”itself is the context that produces the body of the whole novel.Therefore,this research focuses on the relationship between the“porch talk”and the protagonist Janie.“Porch talk”itself leads Janie toward the broad“horizon”in her dream.Her embrace of ethnic folklore such as the Bahamian dance gives her happiness and freedom;while she ignores the Native American folk wisdom due to her unconscious prejudice,she is forced back to the porch from her“horizon”.However,Janie is not merely a practitioner of folkloric activities.She sometimes shows qualities that are characteristic of a folklorist.When she is confronted with extreme racism,she tries to rectify it via the dynamism within a folkloric concept;after her return to the porch,together with Pheoby,she reengages in another“porch talk”and the critical reflection upon the practice itself.