摘要
美国华裔作家林露德专注于历史小说创作,她的《幸运之神》取材于19世纪的苦力贸易,书写广东蚕农王月龙被拐卖到拉丁美洲作"契约华工"的悲惨遭遇。小说采取双重第一人称叙事方式,王月龙讲述自己被绑架贩卖到秘鲁"鸟粪岛"做苦力的经历,他的妻子宝丝讲述家人为解救王月龙所做的种种努力。王月龙打破沉默、说出自己的名字,从而获得秘鲁水手的认可。在此过程中他消解了权力主体对自己的"符号化"建构和"非人化"想象,实现了"去符号化"自我身份建构,得以彰显自己的人权。小说通过主人公的幸运获救来比照未能逃脱厄运的华工,想象性地构建了他们的声音,反映19世纪契约华工在拉丁美洲诸国的流散,将宏大历史个体化,充当了历史的"作证者"。
Chinese American writer Ruthanne Lum McCunn is renowned for her historical fiction.Her God of Luck is based on the Coolie Trade of the 19th century,focusing on the diaspora of Wong Yuet Lung,a Cantonese silkworm raiser,as one representative of the indentured laborers in Latin American countries.The story is narrated in the linear first-person narration,alternately by Yuet Lung to trace his experiences of being kidnapped and sold into Peruvian guano mines,and by his wife Bo See to reveal the familial efforts to save him.Yuet Lung manages to break silence and get his name known,and succeeds in having himself recognized by the Peruvian sailors.In the process,he deconstructs the symbolization and dehumanization imposed on him by the hegemony,and in return initiates his identity on the basis of de-symbolization,which helps him to justify his right as human.The novel contrasts Yuet Lung as a rarely lucky one with those who fail to escape the enslavement,symbolically constructing the voices of the Chinese diasporants in Latin American countries in the 19th century.The narration individualizes meta-narrative,with literary narrative functioning as witness and literary imagination making up for the absence of indentured laborers from history.
出处
《英美文学研究论丛》
2020年第1期91-101,共11页
English and American Literary Studies
基金
山东省社科基金重点项目“19世纪海上丝绸之路和华工海外流散的文学叙事研究”(17BWWJ02)的阶段性成果。
关键词
林露德
《幸运之神》
符号化
作证
去符号化
Ruthanne Lum McCunn
God of Luck
symbolization
witness
de-symbolization
