论早期美国老处女侦探形象的文化意义

The Cultural Roles of Early American Fictional Spinster Detectives

美国女作家格林和莱因哈特分别在《隔壁的风流韵事》和《螺旋楼梯》中,塑造出美国文学史上最早的老处女侦探形象。这一人物形象自身具有矛盾性:基于侦探角色立场,她维护资产阶级道德观和家庭理想,肩负巩固权力统治的文化任务;基于女性立场和老处女身份,她又肩负言说女性困境、重塑老处女形象、挑战权威话语的责任。格林和莱因哈特在小说中让老处女侦探用自己的声音,彰明她们维护道德和妇女权益的作用,同时重新界定她们的人格和潜能,颠覆维多利亚社会在年龄、性别和婚姻身份方面对她们的固有成见。

Anna Catherine Green’s The Affair Next Door and The Circular Staircase and Mary Roberts Rinehart’s The Circular Staircase create the earliest prototypes of spinster detectives in American literary history.These fictional images are in their nature self-contradictory:as detectives,they play the cultural role of upholding bourgeois morality and family ideals,but as single,autonomous women,they challenge the dominant discourse through their investigation of women’s plight and their recasting of the image of the spinster.In their novels,Green and Rinehart endow the spinster detectives with the right to narrate in their own voices.Their narration not only highlights their roles in defending morality and women’s rights,but also redescribes their characters and potential and subverts the Victorian prejudices governing sex,age,and marital status.