越界婚姻的伦理窘境:评史密斯《南街》

The Ethical Dilemma of Cross-Race Marriage: A Review of William Gardner Smith's South Street

史密斯在《南街》中通过越界婚姻的悲剧揭示了美国社会婚姻伦理与种族越界的冲突,抨击了种族歧视和种族偏见对人性的压抑和毁损。种族心结、消极文化移入和执法不公的相互作用严重损害了越界婚姻的合法权益,导致社会婚配伦理的沦丧,加大了白人与黑人之间的种族隔阂。种族主义情境场使黑人和白人的生活步入一个可怕的婚配伦理怪圈,白人对黑人婚配自由的限制和剥夺都是违背社会伦理的,朋友和家人对越界婚姻的"善意"干预不利于对幸福婚姻的追求。这部小说开拓了美国城市自然主义小说的主题空间,谴责了美国白人种族主义和黑人的内化种族主义所构成的系统力量和情境力量对真爱婚姻的阻碍、压抑和伤害,凸显了人性的伟大与局限性。

Through the depiction of the tragedy of cross-race marriage in South Street,William Gardner Smith reveals the conflicts between marital ethics and ethnic passing in American society,making invectives against the repression and destruction of humanity in racial discrimination and prejudice. The racial complex,negative acculturation and judicial injustice combined together greatly do harm to the legal rights of cross-race marriage and result in the loss of social marital ethics,widening the gap between whites and blacks. The racist situational field leads black and white people into a terrific trap of marital ethics.Any of white people's restriction on or deprivation of blacks' marital freedom is a violation of social ethics. Family members as well as friends' well-meaning interference in cross-race marriage is unfavorable to the people pursuing happy marriages. This novel expands the themes of African American urban naturalistic fiction,blaming the systematic power and situational power,which are caused by white racism and black internalization of racism,for the hindrance,repression and destruction of the marriage based upon true love,and thus highlighting the greatness and limitation of human nature.