走向一种人类共同体的幻象--重读《愤怒的葡萄》

作为美国大萧条年代最具影响力的小说,斯坦贝克的《愤怒的葡萄》以插入章与叙事章交替的方式将个体命运置于宏大历史进程,以“沙尘暴叙事”的权威口吻讲述乔德一家人的苦难遭遇,将沙尘暴流民塑造成具有符号意义的“无主之人”形象,在展现他们面对巨大权力而无法主宰自己悲惨命运的同时赋予他们以潜在的颠覆性。不过在小说文本中,颠覆只是作为一种可能性引导着故事进展,其最终走向的并非一场社会革命,而是一种人类共同体的幻象。小说构建出一个历史文化空间,各种历史力量在此冲突交锋,不同政治和意识形态矛盾在此终结,其意义已远超单纯的文学范畴。

By alternatively using the intercalary chapters and the narrative chapters,Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath puts the individuals'destinies in the grand process of history.It narrates the Joads'plight in a tone of authority obtained from the Dust Bowl narratives,thus making the Dust Bowl migrants the symbolic“masterless men”.While demonstrating their inability in the face of the huge power,it endows the migrants with potential subversion.However,in the novel's text,subversion is just a possibility whose destination is not a radical social change but a vision of the human community.Interweaving various ideologies of the Depression years,the novel constructs a particular historical and cultural space,where various historical forces clash with one another,and the conflicts of different politics and ideologies end up.Therefore,its significance has gone well beyond the mere categoryof literature.