中国记忆与华裔的身份追寻— — 散居认同理论下的《喜福会》释读

中国故事在谭恩美的《喜福会》中扮演着特殊的角色,而以家族叙事为核心的故国书写不仅令家丑外扬,更是揭露了旧式中国的诸多弊端,这让作家备受指责.然而,依据霍尔的族裔散居认同理论,这些故国往事实为谭恩美对家族史的重构,即在对过去的重述中发现、定位个体当下的位置;但她的书写方式说明中国历史、传统文化在华裔族群中的断裂,其叙述亦为主流的权力话语所操控.华裔只能站在美国文化的立场之上“回看”中国,其文化认同受制于族裔历史、社会文化和权力等多重因素,呈现出开放、流变和不确定性等特点.因此,小说里的中国故事生动展现了华裔女性如何在断裂与延续、同一性(即所谓的“中国性”)与差异性之间协商与选择,以寻求文化身份的认同,从而解决其所面临的种族身份和社会身份间的冲突与割裂.

Historical Memory and Chinese Americans' Cultural Identity:The Re-interpretation of the Chinese Story in Amy Tan' s The Joy Luck Club from the Perspective of Stuart Hall's Diasporic Identity Theory

In Amy Tan''s the Joy Luck Club, the Chinese stories have played a special role, and, with the family narrative as the core, these stories not only publicized the skeletons in her family closet, but also exposed the evils that ever existed in old China, which makes Amy Tan criticize for her self-orientalizing writing. However, from the perspective of Stuart Hall''s Diasporic Identity Theory, these stories are the reconstruction of Amy Tan''s family history, and she attempts to position the Chinese Americans''self-identity through the restatement of the history. But, the way Tan represented old China illustrated the discontinuity of the Chinese history and traditional culture, both of which are also manipulated by the power discourse of the American mainstream. The Chinese Americans would re-understand China from the standpoint of the American mainstream culture, and their cultural identification, influenced by many factors such as ethnic history, social culture and power, has born the features of openness, fluidity and uncertainty. Therefore,the Chinese stories in the Joy Luck Club showed the Chinese Americans''cultural identity-seeking process between the rupture and succession, the sameness and difference, so as to solve the conflict and split in their racial identity and social identity.