出刊年月/Date of Publishing

1992.03

所屬卷期/Vol. & No.   第22卷第1期 Vol. 22, No. 1

類型/Type                 研究論文 Research Article

篇名/Title
American Political Culture in Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead
梅勒《裸與死》中之美國政治文化

作者/Author
梭頓 William H. Thorton

頁碼/Pagination
pp. 95-122

摘要
雖然梅勒早期作品多已絕版，但《裸與死》在紀錄時代脈動與其所具有之存在主義方面的強大吸引力，使得這本小說到現在依舊受人歡迎。可惜，這些優點正是這小說中未明白表逹的政治意見被忽略的原因。從《裸與死》可窺見梅勒長期以來的政治關懷，這些關懷與左派或右派的標準信念扯不上什麼關係。

隨著冷戰時代的來臨，那些恆久的關懷呈現新的意義。從這觀點看來，《裸與死》的深刻意義在於它向杜魯門主義與冷戰時代的自由主羲的政治假定宣戰。透過何恩中尉 (Lt. Hearn) 的沈思，梅勒幾乎預測了麥加錫主義 (McCarthyism) 的興起。另外，何恩對權威的態度和他的普遍疏離，乃是披頭族 (the Beat Generation) 的社會政治態度的前兆。

梅勒堅稱《裸與死》帶有樂觀訊息，這只能如此解釋：《裸與死》所描繪的人物可以受欺負或被殺害，但最後來卻不會像康明思將軍 (General Cummings) 所預期的那樣，淪落到機器人的地步；也不能被逼得太過分，像柯幅特中士 (Sergeant Croft) 逼迫他們亳無意義地攀登安那卡山 (Mt. Anaka)。這種反抗力量或慢吞吞的作法，被梅勒視為美國四○年代末期的唯一希望。小說人物的個別希望是如此脆弱或無效，所以我們只能推斷：對梅勒本人而言，個人意義的寄託乃是有意的疏離。每個人物以自己的方式面對或逃避此一事實。實際上，每個人在打一場私人戰爭——與其說是對抗日本人，倒不如說是對抗他所抛下的美國。

何思丶康明思、柯幅特和其他次要角色的私人戰爭充滿了政治含義，包括前瞻和回顧的。整體而言，這本小說抗議新聞影片式的現實，因爲它在美國政治文化中，是一種不祥新勢力的工具。美國在戰勝海外法西斯強權的同時，在國內卻培養出一遠比法西斯主義更危險的勢力。在《裸與死》全書中，處處可聞暴風雨來臨前的悶雷：這本小說的喻義並非太平洋的戰事，而是國內方興未艾的文化危機。

Abstract
Although most of Norman Mailer’s early works are now out of print, The Naked and the Dead is still popular as ever due to the strong appeal of its existentialism and its closeness to the pulse of the post-war generation. Unfortunately, these advantages also work against it, as the indirectly stated political opinions expressed in the novel have been ignored. We can see Mailer’s long held political concerns expressed in The Naked and the Dead exist outside of standard left-right politics. With the approach of the Cold War, Mailer’s political views took on new significance. From this point of view, the profound significance of The Naked and the Dead comes from its declaration of war on the Truman doctrine and the liberal political assumptions during the Cold War. Through the reflection of Lt. Hearn, Mailer all but predicts the rise of McCarthyism in the 1950s. In addition, Hearn’s attitude to authority and his general social alienation is a forerunner of the socio-political attitudes of the Beat Generation. Mailer’s somberly titled The Naked and the Dead carries with it an optimistic message, which is that: the characters described in The Naked and the Dead can be bullied or killed, but in the end cannot be reduced to automatons, (as General Cummings expects) or forced to exceed human capabilities, (like Sergeant Croft who forces the soldiers to pointlessly climb Mt. Anaka). Mailer sees this kind of resistance to authority as the one hope of America in the late 1940s. The individual hopes of the characters in the novel are frail and unattainable, and thus we can infer that for Mailer himself, on a personal level, this rift between hope and reality results in a purposeful estrangement from society. Every character has his own way of facing or avoiding this truth, and in reality, each wages his own private war that does not involve the Japanese, and each in turn opposes the America that he abandoned. The private wars of Hearn, Cummings and Croft and the other secondary characters are full of political significance, whether in retrospect or looking to the future. As a whole, the novel protests a stylized newsreel reality, because it is the ominous instrument of a new force situated within American political culture. In defeating the power of Fascism overseas, domestically, America raised a force more dangerous force than Fascism. In The Naked and the Dead the dull roar of thunder from the approaching tempest can be heard on all sides: a metaphor not of the war in the Pacific, but of the unending domestic cultural crisis.

關鍵字/Key Word
--

DOI
--

學門分類/Subject
文學 Literature