摘要
超小说业已不再是先锋文学。然而,近年来出现了一种新现象:与超小说相关的一些关键"手段"被用来表达后殖民理论和争议。这些争议由来已久.其症结是如何理解后现代主义与后殖民主义之间的关系。一些后殖民理论家,诸如丹尼斯·艾科珀,认为对两者进行调和必将导致危险.他们把后现代主义视为西方自身导致的精神和意识崩溃的征兆。他们认为,后殖民主义想要摆脱包含在西方理论和哲学中的霸权主义的束缚,其描述和表达自身时所使用的方式,必须具备多种文化阐释的可能性,其中所包含的一些具体而独特的表达手法和主题关注并不曾在后现代主义中出现。然而,对碎片化的强调,对截然不同的、无穷无尽的阐释的接受甚至渴望的态度,使得后现代主义同后殖民主义具有了不容忽略的相同点。后殖民超小说往往表达一种激烈的愤怒,有时又透露出一种悲哀的严肃,正是在这样一种氛围当中.后殖民超小说向人们传达一些新的见解和观点。本文对三部后殖民主义作品进行分析,探讨殖民意义系统中的隐喻和宏大叙事如何在后殖民作品中被摧毁。迈克尔·翁达杰的小说《英国病人》、卡利尔·菲利普斯的小说《渡河》和南非作家库切的小说《仇敌》都将为我们阐释后殖民作家如何利用超小说手段达到上述的目的提供恰当的例证。
Metafiction and'para-fictional metafiction'~①are not avant-garde literary genres.However,in recent years a situation has developed in which key'devices'associated with the terms are being used in literature to convey and impress prominent aims of postcolonial theory and debate.Such debates have in many ways arisen from questions concerning how to best understand the relationship between Postcolonialism and the emergence and conception of postmodernism.A number of Postcolonial theorists,such as Denis Ekpo have stressed the danger in reconciling the two,and view postmodernism as an indi- cator of the West's self-inflicted spiritual and mental collapse.They reason that if Postcolonialism is to attain'freedom'from the hegemonic restraints embedded in'Western'theory or philosophic disciplines it must fashion and articulate itself in ways reflecting and allowing a plethora of cultural interpre- tive possibilities,and with separate,distinct'tropes'and priorities not neces- sarily reflected in postmodernism. But the stress on fragmentation,the ready acceptance (even desire) for diverging,infinite interpretative responses bestows postmodernism with in- triguing parallels with postcolonialism:parallels,which perhaps should not be ignored or forsaken.It is in this intriguing,often violently angry,sometimes mournfully somber space in which postcolonial metafiction places itself,pro- voking new understandings and insights.This paper will explore key literary texts that illustrate a destruction of the metaphors and grand narratives bound up in colonial meaning systems.Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient;Caryl Phillips's novel Crossing the River and Foe by South African writer J.M.Coe- tzee will provide suitable examples of how such objectives can be effected using para-fictional metafictional devices.
出处
《英美文学研究论丛》
2007年第1期65-79,共15页
English and American Literary Studies
