杰克·伦敦太平洋作品中的麻风病书写与中国想象

“Leprosy Writing”and“China Imagination”in Jack London’s Pacific Works

夏威夷是杰克·伦敦中后期创作中的重要地理场域。夏威夷书写相当程度上是伦敦地缘意识形态的真情流露。伦敦的麻风病书写不仅展示土著的腌臜破败,还隐伏着政治隐喻——麻风病被指责为“中国疾病”。尽管伦敦有意痛斥白人在夏威夷的非正义行为,却在无意识中迎合了殖民者的民族偏见。此外,日俄战争时期,作为战地记者的伦敦多次在文学作品中透露强烈的仇华情绪,其间的中国书写既想象式地塑造华人麻木不仁、安土重迁的负面形象,又不遗余力地渲染“黄祸”思想。伦敦的麻风病书写和中国想象与西方的主体性权威形成了互文性耦合关系,目的是为联邦政府攫取亚太地区的政治利益提供合法性辩词。

Hawaii is an important geographical field domain for Jack London’s middle and late creation and Hawaii writing,to a considerable extent,is London’s revelation of his true sentiments of geographical ideology.London’s“Leprosy Writing”not only depicts those native lepers as degenerates,but also secretively imputes the plague as“China Virus”.Although London intended to denounce white colonists’injustice and atrocity in Hawaii,he unconsciously catered to colonists’ethnic prejudice against lepers.In addition,during the Russo-Japanese War,he worked as a war correspondent and repeatedly revealed his strong anti-Chinese sentiments in his works.The Chinese writings during this period not only imaginatively mould the negative Chinese images of apatheticness and attachment to their native land,but also spare no efforts to play up the idea of“yellow peril”.London’s“leprosy writing”and“Chinese imagination”formed intertextually coupling relationship with Western subjectivity authority in order to provide legal argument for American federal government to seize political interests in the Asian-Pacific region.