库柏对“野蛮人”的颠覆性叙事及其种族主义批评

Cooper’s Subversive Narrative Against “the Savages” and His Racial Criticism

库柏对印第安人的刻画入木三分,在文学史上具有奠基性意义。传统上,人们将其塑造的印第安人做出“好”“坏”的区分,这种二元对立区分法弱化了人物形象的复杂性。事实上,“坏”印第安人往往比“高贵的野蛮人”保持更原始的“印第安性”,他们更敢于反抗白人,其对抗与批评体现了库柏对白人文明的反思。本文从“火水迷思”、印第安人的“复仇”文化以及作为“恶棍-英雄”的“坏”印第安人麦格瓦三方面展开剖析,指出库柏对印第安人的刻画颠覆了19世纪对“野蛮人”的刻板化叙事,披露了美国社会中的种族歧视现象及其文明中的不足之处。

Cooper’s portrayal of the native Americans is penetrating and profound, which has a foundational significance in the literary history. Traditionally, the native Americans that he portrays were distinguished as “good” and “bad”. This binary method weakens the complexity behind the creation of the characters.In fact, the “bad” Indians tend to maintain a more primitive “Indianness” than the “noble savages” do and they dare to resist the whites. Their attack on the whites reflects Cooper’s reflection on white civilization. This article explores Cooper’s American Indian writings from three aspects: the “firewater myth”, the “revenge”culture, and the image of Magua as a “villain-hero”, and suggests that Cooper’s writing subverts the stereotyped narrative of the Native Americans as “barbarians”, with a criticism on the racial discrimination in American society.