论《黄金国的失落》中的生态帝国主义

On Ecological Imperialism in V. S. Naipaul’s The Loss of El Dorado

英国作家V·S·奈保尔在《黄金国的失落》中以帝国历史文献为基础描述了惊险刺激的黄金国探险,不仅满足西方读者对殖民地的刻板印象,激发他们对殖民历史的关注和向往,还将整个加勒比群岛塑造为亟待文明世界拯救的蛮夷之地,沦为帝国叙事和霸权话语操控下的地域他者。但作家也尝试消解殖民行动的历史真实感,将西方人试图成就英雄史诗的拓殖壮举表现为荒诞可笑的闹剧,进而批判了生态殖民活动和殖民扩张的共谋关系。受西方利益至上的农业种植理念和工具理性思想影响,资源掠夺和物种入侵不仅对殖民地的生态环境造成难以估量的恶劣影响,还迫使土著人成为工具化的符号和殖民活动的消耗品。

In The Loss of El Dorado, V. S. Naipaul describes a thrilling exploration of the Caribbean based on imperial documents, which not only coincides with stereotypical impressions that Western readers have concerning the colony and draws their attention to colonial history, but also presents the whole of the Caribbean as a primitive and barbarian space that needs to be saved by civilized Europeans. Such descriptions thus render the Caribbean a geographical Other manipulated by imperial narratives and hegemonic discourse. But Naipaul also tries to dispel the historical reality of colonial expansion and ridicule the colonists’ “heroic” undertakings, in order to examine the intricate relationship between ecological colonization and colonial atrocities. The plunder of resources and the invasion of species, which produces catastrophic effects on the natural ecology of former colonies not only instrumentalizes indigenous people in the creation of colonial atrocities, but renders the Caribbean Islands a victim of both prof it-oriented Western agriculture and instrumental rationality.