《单手掌声》中的跨文化记忆与移民身份

Transcultural Memory and Fluid Identity of Immigrants: On Richard Flanagan’s The Sound of One Hand Clapping

澳大利亚作家理查德·弗拉纳根的《单手掌声》讲述了二战后斯洛文尼亚移民在澳大利亚重建家园与身份认同的艰苦历程。弗拉纳根在小说中将两种看似对立且不可调和的文化模式——斯洛文尼亚文化与澳大利亚文化——并置起来,尝试解读两者之间的交流、碰撞与融合过程。这种并置在小说中多有体现,尤其表现在语言与文化传统两个方面,反映出移民群体在新环境中艰难寻求社会认同并找寻自我意识的努力。跨越不同地域和族群的文化碰撞与交融使作品体现出明显的'跨文化'特征。基于此,本文选取'跨文化记忆'作为理论视角,考察特定历史阶段斯洛文尼亚和澳大利亚两种文化与历史的对抗与共融,以及文化记忆在其中的动态演变。本文重点关注不同文化族群之间的对话与互动,旨在探讨动态、混杂和多元的身份认同的建构过程。

Richard Flanagan’s The Sound of One Hand Clapping is a novel dealing with the hard situations of the Slovenian migrant workers who flee the massacres in Europe and come to Australia to reconstruct their home and identity around the period of WWII.Isolated by language and cultural barriers,these immigrant families struggle with the difficulty of life in the Australian community.Flanagan uses the juxtaposition of two seemingly opposing and incompatible cultural patterns—Slovenian culture and Australian culture—to explain the collision and fusion between two contrasting cultural forces.We can see this juxtaposition in many parts of the book,especially those about languages and cultural traditions,which reveal how the immigrant groups strive to recover their sense of self as well as to seek for social recognition and integration into the host country.Utilizing the theoretical perspective of transcultural memory,this article explores the transnational,transracial and transcultural interactions demonstrated in the novel,thus illustrates the process of dialogic interaction in which different cultures and histories interact and compete with each other to create a dynamic,hybrid and diverse form of identity.