空间·性别·种族:论《干旱的九月》的南方淑女神话

Space·Gender·Race:On Southern Belle Myth in Dry September

威廉·福克纳的短篇小说《干旱的九月》以空间建构为特色,揭示了南方淑女神话背后的性别歧视与种族主义。在故事层面,公共与私人地志空间呈对立互补关系,共同搭建人物内心世界。有别于直接探析人物思想的作品,该小说借主人公在不同地志空间内的相异行为构建其心理空间,进而绘出美国南方群像,披露神话隐含的性别和种族问题。在话语层面,叙事采用同一主题下的并置情节,展现与地志和心理空间相辅相成的文本空间,丰富了读者阅读时的思维认知。依托多元空间,福克纳解构了荒谬的淑女神话,抨击其对女性情感需求的禁锢,讽刺其巩固父权地位和维护种族等级的本质。

William Faulkner’s Dry September, a short story featuring spatial construction, discloses sexism and racism underlying the southern belle myth. At the story level, the public and private topographical spaces present opposite and complementary relationships and work together to build up the characters’ inner worlds. Different from literature works that directly explore characters’ spiritual activities, this short story creates the mental spaces by demonstrating protagonists’ contrary behaviors in different topographical spaces, further drawing a portrait of American southerners and exposing the gender and race issues implicit in the myth. At the discourse level, with a juxtaposition of plots on the same theme, the narrative forms a textual space echoing the topographical and psychological ones, which serves to enrich readers’ cognition during the reading. In multiple spaces, Faulkner manages to deconstruct the southern belle myth by criticizing its confinement on females as well as its nature of consolidating patriarchal society and racial hierarchy.