何处为“家”?:《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》的地方意义

Where is“home”?:The significance of place in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

马克·吐温的《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》呈现了一个流动的地理空间,小说中哈克和吉姆在理想空间与现实空间中不断移动。密西西比河不仅作为美国的“母亲河”,在小说里更充当了连接现实与理想的时空隧道,以“家”“小镇”“杰克逊岛”“木筏”为代表的典型空间通过密西西比河完美地串联起来。根据人文地理学的解释,个体经历可以将无意义的空间转变成赋有意义的“地方”。时空的流动之中,哈克和吉姆赋予这些空间以“家”的内涵,在寻找自由与平等时,他们的空间流动表征了美国这个年轻的国度不断走向成熟的经历。

Mark Twain devises a flowing geographical space in his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.The two protagonists,Huck and Jim,are constantly moving between the ideal space and the real space.As the“mother river”of the US with significant implications,the Mississippi River serves as a time-space tunnel between the reality and the ideal,perfectly connecting typical spaces represented by“home”,“town”,“Jackson’s island”and“raft”.According to human geography,a meaningless space can be transformed into a meaningful“place”under the influence of personal experience.Thus,in the flow of time and space,Huck and Jim endow these spaces with the connotation of“home”.While revealing the pursuit of freedom and equality,their spatial flow represents the progression of young America towards maturity.